According to exclusive reporting from The New York Times, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned the Kremlin to cease its payment of bounties to Taliban-linked and other Afghani fighters targeting American troops.

Calling it a “hoax,” President Trump has repeatedly said the intelligence about such payments never reached his desk while simultaneously saying the intel hasn’t been verified, but Pompeo’s forceful message to the Russians demonstrates that other members of the Administration took the information far more seriously.

“They’ve been giving me the Russia hoax — shifty Schiff, all these characters — from the day I got here,” Trump told reporters when asked about the Russian bounty program during a recent trip to Florida.

A former CIA director, Pompeo told his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, that the United States would not tolerate Russia supporting bounties and red lines targeting American soldiers operating in Afghanistan.

Trump said in multiple interactions with the media that he did not address the issue in a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin because it was not “verified” and it did not rise to his desk, although other officials have said it was included in a Presidential Daily Briefing.  Trump told Jonathan Swann of Axios that the phone call was “about other things.”

It is unknown if Pompeo’s warnings to Lavrov was done with or without Trump’s knowledge.  Pompeo raised the issue in a phone call ostensibly to discuss a meeting with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.