Pompeo Spars With Journalists Over Reports of Russian Bounties on US Soldiers

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says he will not get into details about reports that Russian operatives placed bounties on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and suggested that some news organizations put lives at risk by reporting on the alleged bounties.

During a press briefing on Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was asked if he believed President Donald Trump should have been briefed on intelligence assessments that Russian operatives were putting bounties on U.S. soldiers.

He fired back by suggesting that reporters were missing some context on the process officials go through when the brief the president on potential threats.

“You’ve got assumptions about things that just don’t reflect what it is that we’ve actually seen and done,” Pompeo said.

Pompeo went on to share an example of how officials in the administration decide to brief the president on threats.

“When the threat is sufficiently serious, the scale of the threat is of such importance that there’s an action that I think the president needs to be aware of, and the information that I’ve seen is sufficiently credible, then we make sure that the president is aware of that.”

“The president has been consistently aware of the challenges that Russia presents to us. And he is aware of the risk in Afghanistan,” he added.

Watch the video below (starting at 18:45):

He also suggested that reporters do did not have accurate or complete information on the reporting. He responded to one reporter, “A lot of what you said suggests knowledge that I don’t think you actually have.”

He also said the intelligence community “handled this incredibly well” and “we responded in precisely the correct way.”

Additionally, Pompeo said Trump has taken “the threat to our forces in Afghanistan incredibly seriously throughout the duration of this administration.”

Pompeo also took a shot a media outlets that reported on the alleged Russian bounties and said he would not share details about the intelligence.

“It’s not that I don’t want to, I won’t. Because I’m not going to further jeopardize intelligence capabilities. I’m not going to put at risk the young men and women of Afghanistan in the same way that some news organizations have done. I’m just simply will not engage in that.”

When asked if the U.S. had given Russia a warning about putting bounties on soldiers, Pompeo said, “When we see credible information that suggests that the Russians are putting American lives at risk, we’re responding in a way that is serious.”

“And you said do we warn them, do we talk to them, the answer is of course we do,” he added.

National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien said Trump was not initially briefed on the intelligence because it was “uncorroborated.”

However, on Tuesday, the White House said Trump had now been briefed “on what is unfortunately in the public domain because of The New York Times.”