The White House has acknowledged there was little evidence that Russia had offered Taliban militants bounties to kill US soldiers in Afghanistan.
A spokeswoman for President Joe Biden said the claim had "low to moderate confidence" from US spy chiefs.
Russia has denied paying the bounties. In last year's US election, Mr Biden heavily criticised Donald Trump for not confronting Russia over the claim.
It comes amid new sanctions on Russia and US plans to leave Afghanistan.
The intelligence assessment was first reported last June by the New York Times, and was cited by Mr Biden on the 2020 presidential campaign trail to accuse then-President Trump of not standing up to Russia.
Mr Trump at the time called it "fake news" and a "fake issue". He later tweeted that he was not briefed on the subject because US intelligence agents had not deemed it credible.
At a White House news briefing on Thursday, Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters the intelligence community had determined it had "low to moderate confidence" in the claims.
She said this was due to the fact that the information was said to have come from interrogations of Afghan detainees.
"It's challenging to gather this intelligence and this data," she said.
"While there is low-to-moderate assessment in these reports, we felt it was important for our intelligence community to look into it."
When it emerged last year, the news caused a political furore in the US Congress. Mr Biden repeatedly used the report to criticise Mr Trump's leadership.
"His entire presidency has been a gift to Putin, but this is beyond the pale," Mr Biden said of his Republican opponent shortly after the news broke.
"It's a betrayal of the most sacred duty we bear as a nation to protect and equip our troops when we send them into harm's way. It's a betrayal of every single American family with a loved one serving in Afghanistan or anywhere overseas."
Mr Biden brought it up again during his speech to accept his party's nomination at the National Democratic Convention and in his first conversation as president with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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