RUSSIAN BOUNTIES ON U.S. TROOPS: WHY HASN’T THE ADMINISTRATION RESPONDED? HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION JULY 9, 2020 Serial No. 116–119 Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs ( Available: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/, http://docs.house.gov, or http://www.govinfo.gov U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 41–240PDF WASHINGTON : 2020 COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York, Chairman BRAD SHERMAN, California MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas, Ranking GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York Member ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia STEVE CHABOT, Ohio THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida JOE WILSON, South Carolina KAREN BASS, California SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts TED S. YOHO, Florida DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois AMI BERA, California LEE ZELDIN, New York JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas JIM SENSENBRENNER, Wisconsin DINA TITUS, Nevada ANN WAGNER, Missouri ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York BRIAN MAST, Florida TED LIEU, California FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania BRIAN FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota JOHN CURTIS, Utah ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota KEN BUCK, Colorado COLIN ALLRED, Texas RON WRIGHT, Texas ANDY LEVIN, Michigan GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania ABIGAIL SPANBERGER, Virginia TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania GREG PENCE, Indiana TOM MALINOWSKI, New Jersey STEVE WATKINS, Kansas DAVID TRONE, Maryland MIKE GUEST, Mississippi JIM COSTA, California JUAN VARGAS, California VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas JASON STEINBAUM, Staff Director BRENDAN SHIELDS, Republican Staff Director (II) C O N T E N T S Page WITNESSES Morell, Michael, Former Acting Director and Deputy Director, Central Intel- ligence Agency ...................................................................................................... 5, 7 Wallander, Dr. Celeste, Former Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russia/Central Asia, National Security Council ........................... 9, 11 Nicholson, General John W., (Retired), Former Commander of U.S. Forces— Afghanistan and NATO’s Resolute Support Mission ........................................23, 25 Brzezinski, Ian, Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Europe and NATO, U.S. Department of Defense ...........................................................28, 30 APPENDIX Hearing Notice ......................................................................................................... 74 Hearing Minutes ...................................................................................................... 75 Hearing Attendance ................................................................................................. 76 STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD Statement for the record submitted from Representative Connelly .................... 77 RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD Responses to questions submitted for the record from Chairman Engel ............ 79 Responses to questions submitted for the record from Representative Wagner 81 (III) RUSSIAN BOUNTIES ON U.S. TROOPS: WHY HASN’T THE ADMINISTRATION RESPONDED? Thursday, July 9, 2020 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, Washington, DC The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:03 p.m., via WebEx, Hon. Joaquin Castro [acting chairman of the committee], presiding. Mr. CASTRO [presiding]. The Committee on Foreign Affairs will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess of the committee at any point, and all members will have 5 days to submit statements, extraneous material, and questions for the record, subject to the length limitation in the rules. To insert some- thing into the record, please have your staff email the previously mentioned address or contact full committee staff. Please keep your video function on at all times, even when you are not recognized by the chair. Members are responsible for muting and unmuting themselves, and please remember to mute yourself after you finish speaking. Consistent with House Resolu- tion 965 and the accompanying regulations, staff will only mute members and witnesses as appropriate when they are not under recognition to eliminate background noise. I see that we have a quorum. And I will now recognize myself for opening remarks. We meet today to discuss reporting that Russia put bounties on the heads of American and allied troops, Russian cash pouring into the Taliban’s coffers in exchange for American lives. While we are going to steer clear of discussing any classified information in this hearing, I think I am on safe ground to say that these allegations and claims were never denied by the White House. Russia’s ac- tions, if true, are unacceptable. The American people are demand- ing answers and they are demanding accountability. This hearing is also a reminder that America’s longest war, now approaching nearly two decades of continued conflict, still wages on in Afghanistan. Bringing the 9/11 terrorists to justice was an im- perative, but few would argue today that U.S. national security in- terests are being served by this endless war. Just this past week, a young soldier from my hometown of San Antonio died in a vehicle rollover accident, Vincent Sebastian Ibarria. He was 21 years old and dreamed of becoming a nurse after serving in the Army. I express my condolences to his family and to the more than 2,000 American families who lost a loved one during this conflict. We need to bring this endless war to a close. Today, this committee looks to answer an important foreign pol- icy question: why has Russia faced no consequences, not even a (1) 2 public rebuke, from the Trump administration? We invited Sec- retary Pompeo to testify today. He refused, which is what we have come to expect from this Secretary of State. While he makes plenty of time for interviews on Fox News and seems to relish bullying fact-based journalists from the State Department press room, he rarely, if ever, summons the courage to answer questions from his former colleagues in the House of Representatives, as every other Secretary of State before him has done. Russia is not our friend. Vladimir Putin is not a partner of the United States. He is a dictator who just last week extended his ten- ure to 2036. He has robbed his people of their rights. He has tram- pled on the sovereignty of his neighbors. He has used the resources of the Russian government to undermine democracy, splinter NATO and the EU, and bolster other despots like Assad. His tools are disinformation, violent suppression, and assassination. All of that is contemptible enough, but putting a price on American heads is a serious escalation. Exactly how the intelligence on this matter was presented to the President is still unclear. The Trump administration’s excuses keep changing. Perhaps it was within his briefing, but that does not nec- essarily mean the briefers briefed him on it, because it is widely known that President Trump does not read the Presidential Daily Briefing. Or maybe they did not brief him because the intelligence was, quote-unquote, ‘‘disputed,’’ even though only intelligence that is of major significance makes it into the Presidential Daily Brief- ing. Per usual with President Trump, we are a long, long way from the buck stops here. Even if the administration’s explanations are true, it paints a picture of incompetence at the highest levels of our national secu- rity apparatus. But what troubles me the most from a foreign pol- icy perspective is what this White House did and did not do once it received this information. Was there a public condemnation of Russia and Vladimir Putin from the Trump administration? Did the State and Treasury Departments slap sanctions on Russian of- ficials involved in the plot? Did the Taliban, with whom we have been at war for nearly two decades, pay a price? What are the State and Defense Departments doing to protect our service mem- bers and how are they working with our NATO allies who are con- tributing to the Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan with us to address this threat? None of that. As a matter of fact, this Presi- dent kept doing what he has been doing since even before he was elected, cozying up to Vladimir Putin. Since the United States reportedly obtained this intelligence, President Trump has released a joint statement with Vladimir Putin, directed the purchase of faulty Russian ventilators, and withdrew from the Open Skies Treaty, a critical part of monitoring Russian military activity. He also ordered the reduction of Amer- ica’s troop presence in Germany, an act that was met with bipar- tisan rebuke and criticism from our allies, but with praise from the Russians. He even wanted to expand the G–7 to include Russia again, which was expelled from the group in 2014 following Putin’s illegal annexation of Crimea. It is almost as if President Trump is on a mission to make Russia great again. 3 This issue is also not without precedent. In 2011, the Obama Ad- ministration discovered that Pakistani intelligence officers urged Taliban-affiliated militants to attack the U.S. embassy and a NATO headquarters in Kabul. How did the Obama Administration respond? Secretary Clinton and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Mike Mullen, confronted Pakistani officials and publicly shamed them for these actions, even though we were relying on Pakistan for certain access into Afghanistan. Admiral Mullen called the Haqqani