DIVERGING

NSA Dissents From Other Intel Agencies on Russian Bounty Assessment

The dissent comes as the White House has played down the seriousness of the matter.

The National Security Agency disagreed with other U.S. intelligence agencies’ assessments that Russia paid bounties to Taliban-connected militants for the killing of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. The NSA dissent comes as the White House has claimed that the intelligence was not verified and that President Donald Trump was never briefed on the bounties. However, a legislator said that intelligence on the bounties was included in a written briefing delivered to Trump. It is unclear what caused the NSA to dissent from the other agencies on the matter, though the agency has previously been more cautious than other intelligence agencies in drawing conclusions. In 2017, the NSA stated that it only had “moderate confidence” that Vladimir Putin made efforts to aid Trump in the 2016 presidential election, while the other agencies had “high confidence” in the matter.