Ranking members from the House Democrats were furious that the intelligence community is kept away from giving them a direct briefing. Instead, House Republicans received the White House point of view.
June 30, 2020

Democratic leaders in the House were finally briefed today over the Russia bounty gate story, but instead of being informed, they came away furious.

Instead of listening to intelligence officials and analysts, the briefing was handled by Trump's White House.

Why would they lie, right? (That's a joke.)

Rep. Steny Hoyer led off the Democratic presser by saying how unhappy he was about this process.

"I would have preferred a briefing, -- that the briefing had been given by intel personnel, either from CIA and or NSA, so that we would have the direct evidence and discussion from the intelligence community as to how credible they assessed the information," Hoyer said.

Hoyer bashed Trump for calling this story a "hoax" when the briefing proved it wasn't.

He continued, "I thought this briefing was the White House personnel telling us their perspective. I think we knew the White House perspective."

"What we need to know is the intelligence perspective. So I am therefore urging the White House and the Chief of Staff to follow up on my request to make sure that we are briefed by the intelligence community directly, so that we can get to the bottom of this."

Rep Adam Schiff followed up by saying, "In my view, the right people were not in the room to give us the kind of briefing we needed to get."

Schiff did not understand why Trump isn't explaining to the American people what Russia has done.

"I do not understand for a moment why the president isn't saying this to the American people right now and is relying on I don't know, I haven't heard, I haven't been briefed," Schiff said.

He continued, "That's just not excusable. [Trump's] responsibility as commander in chief is to protect our troops and I shared the concern at the White House today I think many of us have, which is there may be a reluctance to brief the president on things he doesn't want to hear," he said, "especially when it comes to Putin."

Russia bounty gate is an international disgrace. Trump was briefed about this hideous assassination plan, Putin placing a bounty on the heads of US troops. His White House has known about this since 2019. And they've continually bowed to Vladimir Putin, even suggesting he be invited back to the G8.

And to forgo normal channels, such as not first briefing the Gang of Eight and then both Republican and Democratic House members at the same time? They're corrupt AND incompetent.

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon