‘President Trump, the commander-in-chief of American troops serving in a dangerous theater of war, has known about this for months according to the Times and done worse than nothing,’ Biden said. ‘Not only has he failed to sanction or impose any kind of consequences on Russia for this egregious violation of international law, Donald Trump has continued his embarrassing campaign of deference and debasing himself before Vladimir Putin.’ Media outlets later referenced the story as another reason to avoid pulling troops out of Afghanistan. Never mind that the story had more holes than a sieve. The top US commander in Afghanistan said he had not seen evidence to corroborate the claim that there were Russian bounties on American troops, as did defense secretary Mark Esper. The information allegedly came from captured militants, who are not exactly known to be reliable. And as Arthur Bloom pointed out in the New York Post, if Russia wanted the US to withdraw from Afghanistan, why would they implement a program sure to have the opposite effect? Conveniently enough, the Biden administration is walking back the story in conjunction with Biden’s announcement he will support troop withdrawal.