Pelosi Suggests Intelligence Officials Withheld Russian Intel From Trump for Fear He Would ‘Tell Putin What They Knew’

Speaker Nancy Pelosi questioned on CNN this afternoon why President Donald Trump would not have been briefed about intel that Russia was offering bounties to Taliban-linked militia to kill U.S. troops.

On Sunday night the president not only claimed the intel was not reported to him but that the intel agencies “did not find this info credible.”

“It sounds like you’re not sure whether or not president trump was actually briefed. You think it is possible that he’s lying about that?” Jake Tapper asked the speaker.

“Well, I don’t know,” Pelosi said. “I mean, the point is that if they had this intelligence — and by the way, the high confidence, forget that. In other words, if you have something of that threat to our troops, you pursue it. You pursue it, and as an intelligence person, again, the intelligence committee is frequently briefed on matters that are in the works, shall we say, that we will learn more about as more intelligence is available.”

She said Trump should have been briefed on the intel before asking “why didn’t they?” and answering her own question:

Because they know it makes him very unhappy, and all roads for him, as you know, lead to Putin. And would he tell Putin what they knew? And now it’s in the public domain, so Putin knows anyway.

Pelosi continued to say if Russia really offered these bounties and there was intel about it, “they should have informed the president in a way that he would understand and that he would keep highly confidential.”

“Maybe they feared he would not,” she added.

You can watch above, via CNN.

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