Trump administration must give 'intelligence perspective' on Russia bounty allegations, House Democrats say

'I thought this briefing was the White House personnel telling us their perspective,' top Democrat says of Tuesday meeting

House Democrats emerged from a meeting at the White House on the alleged Russian bounty scheme in Afghanistan with more questions than answers, the group indicated on Tuesday.

"I thought this briefing was the White House personnel telling us their perspective," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, the second highest-ranking Democrat in the lower chamber.

"I think we knew the White House perspective. What we need to know is the intelligence perspective," Mr Hoyer said.

Other House Democrats attending the meeting on Tuesday were Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, Armed Services Chairman Adam Smith, Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel, and several military and intelligence community veterans on the Armed Services and Foreign Affairs panels.

Briefing the lawmakers from the White House team were Donald Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadow, and others who have been saying the president was not made aware of intelligence reports about the alleged Russian operation before the New York Times published a story on Friday night.

Mr Schiff told Mr Trump's advisers at the Tuesday morning meeting he is concerned the people surrounding the president were reticent about sharing national security information with him that would upset his preconceived notions about the state of foreign affairs.

"There may be a reluctance to brief the president on things he does not want to hear, and that may be more true with respect to Putin and Putin's Russia than with respect to any other subject matter," Mr Schiff told reporters on Tuesday, referring to the Russian president.

Such an information gap between the US intelligence community and the occupant of the Oval Office, who directs US foreign and military policy, could produce blunderous consequences, Democrats have long said.

The Times reported on Monday that intel reports on the alleged Russian bounty scheme were included in the President's Daily Brief in February. The President's Daily Brief is the daily compendium of high-level information and analysis from all agencies on national security issues that is supposed to land on the desks of the president, Cabinet officials, and top advisers.

Other outlets have reported for years that Mr Trump often does not read the document, instead preferring to be briefed orally about the highlights of the day's national security landscape.

Mr Schiff appeared on Tuesday to place blame on Mr Trump's national security aides for not presenting reports about the Russian bounty scheme in a manner that woudl ensure they were brought to the president's attention.

“It’s not a justification to say that the president should have read whatever materials. If he doesn't read, he doesn't read — they should know that by now," Mr Schiff said.

"If the intel community had intel along the lines that is publicly reported [in the Times and elsewhere] and the president is getting on the phone with Vladimir Putin time after time, and is welcoming Putin to the US and back in the G8, this is information I think would be negligent to keep from him," Mr Schiff said.

Democrats made clear on Tuesday they were not satisfied with the briefing on Tuesday and still want to hear from top US intelligence officials on the underlying reports about the Russian bounty scheme. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have requested all-member briefings for both chambers by the intel community.

Some senators have already begun reviewing the underlying intelligence, which Democrats say refutes the president's notion that the alleged bounty plot is a “fabricated Russia Hoax” intended to “make Republicans look bad."

"I just reviewed the intel. It’s not a hoax, Mr. President. And if you continue ignoring the facts, more soldiers and Marines are going to die," Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy tweeted on Monday.

Seven Republicans from the Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees met with Mr Meadows on Monday and came away from the meeting vowing a strong retaliation against Russia if the reports bear out that Mr Putin did in fact perpetrate a bounty scheme on the lives of American and coalition troops in Afghanistan.

"I want to be absolutely clear: Any targeting of US forces by Russians, by anyone else, will face a very swift and deadly response," said House Republican Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney, who was at the GOP meeting on Monday.

Republican Senator Todd Young of Indiana has said if the reports about Russia are deemed credible, Mr Putin and Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov should be "directly" sanctioned.

"We should not even be discussing an invitation for Russia to rejoin the G7," Mr Young said, directly contradicting Mr Trump, who has floated the possibility of inviting Russia back to the annual summit of leaders from the world's most powerful countries after it was ousted in 2014 for invading Ukraine. The G7's 2020 summit is slated to be held in the United States.