https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/the-russian-bounties-story-turns-out-to-be-trash-journalism/
How many times will people have to fall for this before they learn?
H onestly opposing Donald Trump should be easy. There is much to choose from in the president’s personality, character, public words, and public conduct, and many scandals and policy decisions to pick from. Yet somehow, Democrats and the media keep on betting heavily on stories that turn out, on closer inspection, to range from unproven to grossly exaggerated to outright fabrications. There’s no Postal Service conspiracy to vanish mailboxes and sabotage the election. Just yesterday, I noted the gulf between claims that ICE is mass-sterilizing immigrant women and the actual complaint, which raises secondhand alarms about a single doctor at a single facility. And now, we see the collapse of the “Russian bounties paid to the Taliban to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan” story.
New York Times reporters Charlie Savage, Eric Schmitt, Michael Schwirtz, and Mujib Mashal broke the heavily hyped story in late June: “Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops, Intelligence Says”:
American intelligence officials have concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan — including targeting American troops — amid the peace talks to end the long-running war there, according to officials briefed on the matter. The United States concluded months ago that the Russian unit, which has been linked to assassination attempts and other covert operations in Europe intended to destabilize the West or take revenge on turncoats, had covertly offered rewards for successful attacks last year. [Emphasis added]