I’m at a loss on the news that the White House knew Russian operatives were paying bounties for Taliban attacks on U.S. & NATO soldiers.

As someone who worked at both the Bush & Obama White House, I can't fathom how that intel wouldn’t make it to the President in short order...
... both because of the implications with the Russians, and with the Taliban who the President was negotiating with in real time.

Either the senior staff was truly incompetent, or worse: they purposely withheld the info for fear it would disrupt the President’s relationships.
If they thought the President would have done the right thing and defended the lives and honor of our American troops in Afghanistan, they would have told him immediately.
The fact that staff drew up response options but somehow no one informed the Pres. seems to reflect an entrenched feeling that, at best the Pres. needed plausible deniability, & at worst they assessed Trump would sacrifice US troops for his relationship with Putin & the Taliban.
Of all the ways this president has broken with tradition of past presidents, his constant yielding to the Russians is up there as the most confounding and strategically damaging to U.S. interests.
Something has been off about that relationship since the beginning, and Americans are quite literally paying in blood for his pandering to Putin.
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