Mr. Trump responded vaguely when asked in an interview on Wednesday with the Fox Business Network about how he would respond if Russia were proven to have put bounties on U.S. troops. Mr. O’Brien told reporters that the National Security Council had drawn up undisclosed options for a potential response. “I cannot recall under Bush, Obama, Clinton, them wanting to come out and say, ‘Look, the president didn’t know anything.’”Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, did most of the talking in the nearly two-hour session. The director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, repeatedly told lawmakers the events in question happened well before he took over his post in late May from the former acting director, Richard Grenell. officer, pushed back and asked why, after the assessment was included in the President’s Daily Brief in late February, Mr. Trump was not given a heads-up before any of the five or six phone calls he subsequently had with Mr. Putin, including one call in which Mr. Trump invited the Russian leader to a Group of 7 meeting.

Source: New York Times July 01, 2020 19:58 UTC