Republican senators are defending President Donald Trump’s handling of intelligence claiming that Russia’s military offered bounties to Taliban militants to kill U.S. troops, saying the evidence of bounties has not received “sufficient verification,” and arguing that Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee had access to the same intelligence the president did and didn’t sound an alarm, The Hill Reports.
Trump has come under fire since Saturday for not issuing a forceful response to the allegations or vowing to get to the bottom of the claims. Instead, he attacked the media reports as “fake news” and suggested the story is meant to make Republicans “look bad.”
The president claimed in a tweet Sunday night that “Intel just reported to me that they did not find this info credible, and therefore did not report it to me or @VP. Possibly another fabricated Russia Hoax, maybe by the Fake News @nytimesbooks.”
On Monday, Republican lawmaker, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), said that the White House needed to get more “serious” in its response after he was flooded by calls from Nebraskan constituents alarmed about media reports of the bounties.
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By Tuesday, however, other Republican senators started to rally around Trump, defending his handling of intelligence after receiving a briefing at the White House from Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe and national security adviser Robert O’Brien.
The GOP lawmakers who attended the White House briefing said media reports about the intelligence were “inaccurate” and argued that Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee had access to the same intelligence the president did and didn’t sound an alarm, implying the recent controversy has a political motive with the election four months away.
“Every single member, Republican and Democrat alike, of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is aware, should have been aware of the intelligence that I was briefed on,” Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) said. “It’s long been available,” he added.
As noted by The Hill, “Democrats have hammered Trump over the issue, and Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) on Tuesday morning criticized the president for not taking immediate action.”
“If in fact Putin and his cronies have been sponsoring the murder of American and coalition forces in Afghanistan, there is no question that there should be swift and severe consequences,” Schumer said on the Senate floor, according to report.
“But unlike every previous administration I’ve ever worked with, the Trump administration has been shockingly weak-kneed when it comes to authoritarian leaders like Putin.”
Schumer told reporters that Democrats would push for amendments to the annual defense policy bill, which is pending on the floor this week, to penalize Russia.
