[American Thinker] The other day, the New York Times was subtly and not so subtly promoting the claim that President Trump was standing callously by and coddling Russia's Vladimir Putin even as Putin was busily offering the Taliban bounties for the bodies of dead U.S. servicemen. It was the old "Trump is a Russian agent" canard whipped out in a new form.The intelligence finding was briefed to President Trump, and the White House's National Security Council discussed the problem at an interagency meeting in late March, the officials said. Officials developed a menu of potential options — starting with making a diplomatic complaint to Moscow and a demand that it stop, along with an escalating series of sanctions and other possible responses, but the White House has yet to authorize any step, the officials said.
Heartless bastard, allowing Russia to pick off our men while he kaffeeklatsched with Putin and invited him to the G-7. Anything for his Russian master.
President Trump denied it. His acting director of National Intelligence at the time, Richard Grenell, denied it vehemently. Grenell's disavowal of the leak of such "partial intelligence" was something I noted here. And for what it's worth, even the Russians denied it.
But the Times pressed on with the claim and even did some additional reporting to claim that it had proof. The Guardian helped the Times along with a follow-up story beginning with "Outrage Mounts about..."
Fortunately, there was CBS's Catherine Herridge, who batted back at the press at its own game — and found some pretty exculpatory backing for the Trump administration's statements: