Verified? Intelligence rarely operates in the world of black and white, instead crafting assessments with assigned levels of confidence and often presented with dissenting views from within the IC. /1
Ideally the national security bureaucracy informed by those assessments makes policy recommendations to the President. The raid on bin Laden was a decision famously made by @BarackObama on information about his location that some characterized as 50-50. /2
No one is denying there is intel that indicates Russians paid bounty for coalition deaths in Afghanistan. Don’t let the administration’s claims that they need to “verify” the intelligence divert you from the greater deficiencies in Trump national security process. /3
