Day 1,257: Russia bounty plot was on Trump’s desk as early as February

A scrambling White House tried to spin a report that Donald Trump knew and did nothing about Russia putting bounties on the heads of American servicemen and servicewomen serving in Afghanistan. The report detailed that a Russian military unit was paying Taliban-linked fighters for every NATO troop they killed, including Americans.

After a day of tap dancing and trying to throw cold water on the report and Trump’s knowledge of it, a new report laid out more damning details as even elected Republicans called for further inquiry.

The investigation into the suspected Russian covert operation to incentivize such killings has focused in part on an April 2019 car bombing that killed three Marines as one such potential attack, according to multiple officials familiar with the matter.

The new information emerged as the White House tried on Monday to play down the intelligence assessment that Russia sought to encourage and reward killings — including reiterating a claim that Mr. Trump was never briefed about the matter and portraying the conclusion as disputed and dubious.

But that stance clashed with the disclosure by two officials that the intelligence was included months ago in Mr. Trump’s President’s Daily Brief document — a compilation of the government’s latest secrets and best insights about foreign policy and national security that is prepared for him to read. One of the officials said the item appeared in Mr. Trump’s brief in late February; the other cited Feb. 27, specifically.

Part of the White House’s initial denial was that Trump wasn’t personally briefed on the subject, dodging the question whether it was in the President‘s Daily Brief, which contains the most important and urgent information from the intelligence community. Trump is known to frequently eschew the PDB, relying instead “on conservative media and friends for information, current and former intelligence officials have said.”

Trump is notoriously lazy, incurious and has an particular affinity for Vladimir Putin. Trump’s failure to get anything done or do the bare minimum for his job, such as reading the PDB or protecting American troops as the commander-in-chief, isn’t due to a lack of time. The only thing on his Monday schedule, for the second week in a row, was lunch with Mike Pence.

1,257 days in, 205 to go

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