White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt warned on Wednesday that the FBI is coming for the individuals who leaked information on the damage done to Iranian nuclear facilities to CNN.
CNN’s Natasha Bertrand obtained an early assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) that the U.S.’ bombing of three nuclear facilities only set back Iran’s nuclear program by a few months. Leavitt said on Fox News’ “America Reports” that the FBI has launched an investigation on who leaked a “top secret intelligence analysis” to the news outlet.
“I am told by the FBI [that] the leak is already being investigated and it absolutely should be,” Leavitt said. “Because this was a top secret intelligence analysis that very few people in the United States government had access to see. So I understand that the FBI and the Department of Justice are already on this as they should be.”
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The press secretary added that 14 bombs weighing 30,000 pounds will certainly cause “destruction” and “obliteration.” President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that the bombings in Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan “completely obliterated” the nuclear sites.
During a NATO Summit on Wednesday, Trump told NBC News’ Kelly O’Donnell that the DIA report on the destruction of the nuclear sites was incomplete due to being in the early stages and did not properly assess the damage done by the B-2 bombers. While speaking to reporters on Tuesday, he labeled CNN and MSNBC as “gutless losers” and “scum” for casting doubt on the success of the bombings.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth accused legacy news outlets of trying to “spin” the administration’s attack on Iran in an attempt to “hurt” Trump.
[T]he instinct of CNN, the instinct of The New York Times is to try to find a way to spin it for their own political reason to try to hurt President Trump or our country. They don’t care what the troops think, they don’t care what the world thinks. They want to spin it to try to make him look bad based on a leak,” Hegseth said.
CNN said in a Wednesday statement that it stands by Bertrand’s reporting and argued it is not “reasonable” to criticize their reporters “for accurately reporting the existence of the assessment.”
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