Top officials in the White House were aware in early 2019 of classified intelligence indicating Russia was secretly offering bounties to the Taliban for the deaths of Americans, a full year earlier than has been previously reported.
The White House did not respond to questions about Trump or other officials’ awareness of Russia’s provocations in 2019.
Bolton declined to comment Monday when asked by the AP if he had briefed Trump about the matter in 2019.
The intelligence in 2019 and 2020 surrounding Russian bounties was derived in part from debriefings of captured Taliban militants.
As of April 2019, the attack was under a separate investigation, unrelated to the Russian bounties, to determine how it unfolded.
The officials who spoke to the AP also said they were looking closely at insider attacks — sometimes called “green-on-blue” incidents — from 2019 to determine if they are also linked to Russian bounties. »