US President Donald Trump has admitted he never confronted Putin about intelligence showing Russia paid the Taliban to kill US soldiers.
Trump had a phone call with the Russian president Vladimir Putin last week but said he did not use the opportunity to ask him about allegations, claiming the intelligence was ‘fake news’.
The admission was part of an interview with Australian journalist Jonathan Swan, who is the political reporter for US news site Axios.
"That was a phone call to discuss other things,” he said.
“Frankly that’s an issue that many people said was fake news.”
Donald Trump and Axios reporter Jonathan Sawn speak a week after Trump's phone call with Putin. Source: Axios
Why is this a big deal?
Last month, the New York Times broke a huge story that US intelligence concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit had offered payments for each US or allied soldier killed.
Australia was not mentioned in the report but still has hundreds of military personnel in Afghanistan as trainers of the Afghan army.
The report said the intelligence had been concluded “months ago,” meaning the White House likely knew about it long before the story was made public.
The White House claimed that Trump had not been briefed on the matter because the intelligence was inconclusive. However, multiple outlets subsequently reported that the intelligence was included in his briefing.
In the interview with Axios, Jonathan Swan asked if he read his briefings. Here is the exchange:
TRUMP: It never reached my desk. You know why? Because they didn’t think — intelligence — they didn’t think it was real.
SWAN: It was in your written brief.
TRUMP: They didn’t think it was worthy. If it reached my desk, I would have done something about it. It never reached my desk, because —
SWAN: Do you read your written brief?
TRUMP: I do.
There are disputes about the significance of the intelligence. While the CIA appears to have concluded months ago that Russia did offer the bounties, the NSA reportedly disagreed.
The Democrats have also used this story to attack the Trump administration, with one senator Tammy Duckworth running a tally on how many days Trump has gone without challenging Russia on the matter.
Trump has said that he ultimately wants to withdraw from Afghanistan, signing a deal with the Taliban in February that would lead to the US withdrawing troops.
