In yet another example of a dramatic mainstream media narrative imploding, the intelligence community has backed off reports that Russia placed bounties on the heads of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
A senior Biden administration official said Thursday the intelligence community only had “low to moderate” confidence in the Russian bounty story, meaning it is unproven and possibly untrue, due to a reliance on “detainee reporting.” The revelation came as the administration announced a new series of sanctions against Russia for a host of reasons, but the bounty story was not among them.
NEW: Senior admin official tells reporters that the US intel community still only has low-moderate confidence in the intel about Russia placing bounties on US/coalition troops in Afghanistan, and for that reason none of today's public actions against Russia are a response to that
— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) April 15, 2021
In a press that already fixated on Russia collusion accusations since 2016, the story went wild last year, and critics are furious over another example of legacy press outlets corroborating one another on an anonymously sourced story that turned out to be, at best, doubtful.
