Let’s talk PDB for a second, shall we?
@PressSec is lying to you.
She’s claims Trump and Pence weren’t briefed on the Russian bounty allegations because they weren’t “verified.”
That’s a really blatant misrepresentation of the way intelligence works. 1/X
@PressSec is lying to you.
She’s claims Trump and Pence weren’t briefed on the Russian bounty allegations because they weren’t “verified.”
That’s a really blatant misrepresentation of the way intelligence works. 1/X
Very rarely is intelligence specific in terms of “___ is going to happen on ___”
More often than not, it’s discussed in terms of probabilities, or levels of confidence. 2/X
More often than not, it’s discussed in terms of probabilities, or levels of confidence. 2/X
Often, as was the case with 9/11, we will know that *something* is coming, although we may not necessarily have a clue *what* that something is or, more importantly, *when* it might happen.
We’ve made improvements since 9/11, but so have our adversaries. 3/X
We’ve made improvements since 9/11, but so have our adversaries. 3/X
Either way, information doesn’t have to be concrete to make it in to the PDB. At first, it might be something as simple as “Mr. President, there’s credible chatter that X is going to do Y” and then POTUS will ask to stay updated. 4/X
The point is, POTUS is briefed on even relatively-low confidence matters, because nobody wants to be the one who didn’t tell the President something big might be coming.
There’s zero chance he wasn’t told about Russian bounties. Or that it was low-confidence. 5/X
There’s zero chance he wasn’t told about Russian bounties. Or that it was low-confidence. 5/X
