Experts Say Intel Should Have Reached Trump On Russian Bounty Program

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U.S. Marines serve in Afghanistan’s Helmand province in 2018. The U.S. intelligence community is assessing reports that Russia set up a bounty program to pay the Taliban to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

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The President’s Daily Briefing is the top-secret intelligence report the CIA presents to the president every weekday. The book shown here is for a briefing delivered to President George W. Bush in 2002.

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Congress Unites To Demand Answers From Trump On Russian Bounties In Afghanistan

Dan Hoffman, a former CIA station chief in Moscow who also worked in the Middle East, says it’s important to share intelligence as widely and as quickly as possible.

«I served three years in overseas combat zones collecting this sort of tactical intelligence,» he said. «It’s not like fine wine getting better with age. You’ve got to get it out to the people at risk; that means our soldiers but also coalition forces.»

«My concern as an intelligence officer would be, I don’t want the president or his national security adviser to be blindsided when [British] Prime Minister Boris Johnson says, ‘Hey, about that reporting we received that the Russians have a bounty out for our people in Afghanistan …’ » Hoffman said.

The director of national intelligence has the final say over what goes into the daily briefing book, though the CIA generates much of the content and all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies can contribute.

These intelligence streams flow into the various agencies around the clock, and overnight, while Washington sleeps, a team puts together the formal briefing book that’s ready by daybreak.

Face-to-face briefings

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Sept. 11 Revealed The Importance And Limits Of The President’s Daily Briefing

The book, which typically includes up to 10 items, is available to Trump and his top advisers, though the president prefers to discuss the material in person and is briefed several times a week for about 30 minutes to an hour, according to officials familiar with the process.

Trump has been criticized for his response to the COVID-19 pandemic and now the Russia bounty story. In both cases, the White House has tried to shift at least some of the blame onto the briefings.

The White House said the coronavirus threat to the U.S. was first mentioned in a briefing on Jan. 23, but only in a glancing way. And now it says the president was never told verbally about the Russian bounty story.

But in both cases, detailed material was reportedly available to the president and his top advisers in the briefing book.

Normally, the president’s dedicated briefer is not publicly identified. But amid the recent controversies, Trump’s has been named as Beth Sanner, a highly respected, 30-year veteran of the intelligence community.

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President Lyndon Johnson reads the President’s Daily Briefing as his wife Lady Bird Johnson holds their first grandchild in the White House.

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President Lyndon Johnson reads the President’s Daily Briefing as his wife Lady Bird Johnson holds their first grandchild in the White House.

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In addition to Sanner, the briefings are usually attended by CIA Director Gina Haspel and Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence. O’Brien, the national security adviser, is also present, and according to David Priess, the person in this position has to make sure the president gets the information he needs.

«The ultimate responsibility for getting national security information that the president needs, to the president, lies with the national security adviser,» said Priess.

O’Brien, who assumed the position last September, is Trump’s fourth national security adviser in less than four years.

The daily intelligence briefing dates to President Harry Truman, who requested it as he tried to make sense of a still-chaotic world in the aftermath of World War II.

Just two years ago, the CIA finally released those initial briefings to Truman, and the contents sound very familiar today. The first item from the first briefing was about the Soviet Union spreading disinformation about the U.S. That briefing also included reports about tensions in the Korean Peninsula and a U.S. trade dispute with China.

The briefings have been tailored to the wishes of each president.

President Richard Nixon didn’t much care for them and only authorized one adviser to see them — Henry Kissinger. President Barack Obama got it on his iPad and read it privately, then discussed it throughout the day with the more than 30 other advisers who were also allowed to see it.

Greg Myre is an NPR national security correspondent. Follow him @gregmyre1.