Trump claims intel on Russian bounties was deemed not credible

President Trump claimed in a late-night tweet that he was not briefed on intelligence about a Russian unit offering bounties on American service members in Afghanistan because the U.S. intelligence community deemed the information not credible.

Trump also suggested that details of the intelligence, first reported by The New York Times on Friday, may have been fabricated by the media in order to “make Republicans look bad.”

“Intel just reported to me that they did not find this info credible, and therefore did not report it to me or @VP,” Trump tweeted late Sunday night. “Possibly another fabricated Russia Hoax, maybe by the Fake News @nytimesbooks, wanting to make Republicans look bad!!!”

Neither the White House nor the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) have addressed the credibility of the intelligence as described but have disputed the Times’s account that Trump was briefed on the information. Representatives for the ODNI and CIA did not immediately returned requests for comment Monday about the president’s claim that intelligence officials informed him the information was deemed not credible.

Trump’s tweet Sunday came shortly after The Washington Post reported that intelligence assessments concluded that the Russian payments offered to Taliban-linked militants led to the deaths of U.S. service members in Afghanistan.

The Times reported Friday that the intelligence community concluded months ago that the Russian intelligence unit commonly known as the GRU secretly offered payments to Taliban-linked militants for successful attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan last year. The newspaper reported that Trump had been briefed on the intelligence and that officials had deliberated potential response options but that the White House hadn’t authorized any further action.