❓WHAT HAPPENED: President Donald J. Trump plans to limit sending classified information to Congress following a leak of an early intelligence assessment on the Iran bombing damage.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: President Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and Congressional Democrats.
📍WHEN & WHERE: The leaked DIA report surfaced late Monday, with media reports following on Tuesday. Trump spoke on Wednesday in the Netherlands.
💬KEY QUOTE: “Several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years,” stated Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director John Ratcliffe.
🎯IMPACT: The administration plans to restrict classified information sharing on CAPNET, citing concerns over leaks.
President Donald J. Trump intends to limit the sharing of classified information with Congress after an early Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessment on the Iran bombing damage was leaked. The “low-confidence” report, shared on CAPNET—a system used by Congress to access classified information—late Monday, suggested that U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites on Saturday had only set back Iran’s nuclear program by a few months. It also suggested that much of Iran’s enriched uranium had been moved before the strikes.
Notably, CNN’s Natasha Bertrand, a journalist notorious for laundering stories for partisan actors within the intelligence community and a key figure in the Hunter Biden laptop coverup and Russiagate hoax, reported a portion of the assessment on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, President Trump dismissed the leaked intelligence as “very inconclusive” while speaking in The Hague alongside NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also addressed the leaked report, calling it “preliminary” and “low-confidence,” adding, “This is a political motive here.” The Defense Secretary stated that the Pentagon has initiated a criminal investigation into the leaked top-secret report.
Consequently, the administration plans to restrict postings on CAPNET. “Go figure: Almost as soon as we put the information on CAPNET, it leaks,” an administration source stated. “There’s no reason to do this again.”
Despite the preliminary DIA assessment, more thorough reports from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Israeli intelligence indicate that Iran’s nuclear sites suffered extensive damage. “Several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years,” stated CIA director John Ratcliffe. This assessment is backed by additional analysis from the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
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