McEnany Claims Trump Still Hasn’t Been Briefed on Russia Putting Bounties on Americans: ‘No Consensus’ on Intelligence
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said President Donald Trump has still not been briefed about a New York Times report that Russia put bounties on American troops. McEnany noted there’s still “no consensus” in the intelligence community, but said the Times’ claim that Trump knew about it was “erroneously reported.”
The Times’ report, which was published three days ago, said that Trump was notified about Russian bounty campaign to the Taliban in late March, but has still yet to confront the Russians about targeting U.S. soldiers. The Washington Post also found that found that the program could have resulted in the “death of several U.S. service members.”
In a White House press briefing Monday, Reuters Jeff Mason asked, ” Does the president have a specific message for Moscow given these reports?”
“No, because he has not been briefed on the matter,” McEnany responded. “There is no consensus among the intelligence committee community and there are in fact dissenting opinions.”
McEnany echoed similar sentiments from her interview on Fox & Friends Monday morning where she called the report “egregious” with “false information.”
Over the past two days, Trump called it “fake news” and “another phony hit job” on Twitter. The story has dominated the news cycle for the past three days, but McEnany was insistent Trump still had not been briefed on the matter.
“I am pointing you back to the fact that there is no consensus within the intelligence community,” McEnany said later in the briefing. “I would also note that for those of you always taking The New York Times at their word, they erroneously reported that the president was briefed on this. He was not briefed on this and neither was the vice president.”
“Before buying into a full fledged narrative from The New York Times that falsely stated something about the president, that you would wait for the facts to come out and note once again that there is no consensus in the intelligence community and there are dissenting opinions from some within it,” she concluded.
Watch above, via Fox News.
