‘Absolutely Despicable’: Kayleigh McEnany Baselessly Accuses ‘Rogue’ Intelligence Officers of Leaking Bounty Killing Program to Undermine Trump

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany strongly suggested “rogue” members of the intelligence community leaked blockbuster news of a Russia bounty program that paid Taliban militants to kill American troops in Afghanistan as part of a campaign to undermine President Donald Trump.

During a short, 15-minute press briefing on Tuesday, McEnany sought to tamp down the firestorm of criticism over news that the White House knew about the bounty threat to US troops months ago but that Trump was never briefed on it, despite the intelligence being included in his Presidential Daily Brief. Throughout his first term, numerous White House insiders have detailed that Trump rarely, if ever, reads his daily PDB and instead prefers to be verbally briefed a few times a week. During her brief press conference, McEnany pointedly declared that Trump “protects the troops” (or a close variant of that phrase) seven different times as part of the White House pushback against the growing outrage about the White House inaction.

When USA Today White House correspondent David Jackson noted that McEnany had referred to the “targeted leaking” to The New York Times, he followed up, asking: “Who is doing the targeting, and why are they doing it?”

“It’s a great question,” McEnany said, providing no evidence to back up her previous accusation. “These are rogue intelligence officers. We will not be able to get — very likely not be able to get a consensus on this intelligence, because of what was leaked to The New York Times. You have both the NSC, ODNI, and CIA all noting what damage this leak does not only to the safety of our troops, which is paramount, but the ability of the United States to aggregate information from our allies and have assets and get this valuable information.”

“Members of [intelligence community] are going after Trump? Is that what you are saying?” Jackson pressed.

“It is possible,” McEnany responded, shifting into pure speculation that dovetails with the president’s long-simmering complaints about a “deep state” conspiracy against him. “If that is the case, it is absolutely despicable.”

Another reporter then followed up: “Is the Trump administration doing anything or taking any action like an audit of the IC, or what steps are you taking to try to find the source of the leaks?”

“Make no mistake, the DOJ has done several criminal leak referrals, 120 in 2017, 88 in 2018, 104 on average per year under President Trump. ” McEnany said, reading directly out of her briefing book in a long rambling response that never answered the question about the specific Russia-Taliban bounty leak. “We do take those steps. We do have a president, who ultimately when it comes down to the safety of our troops, he hasn’t taken impulsive actions, he takes deliberate action. We saw that in a protecting of our troops. At the same time, when you had Iran who shot down a drone, he chose not to shoot back in that instance. He protected civilians lives, and it was a measured response. Ultimately, the ultimate way to protect American troops is to not get into needless foreign wars. This president is on record for decades of opposing foreign wars. Iraq is a great example appeared nearly a two-decade war. When Washington was unanimous saying we are going into Iraq, this president said no, that’s not the right decision. He has ultimately protected American troops and kept this country safe. This president has a very strong foreign policy record to be incredibly proud of.”

After that comment, McEnany quickly ended the press conference.

Watch the video above, via Fox News.

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