Trump will limit information classified shared with Congress after leak on Iran
Democratic leaders in Congress are furious over President Trump decision to limit intelligence sharing with lawmakers
The Trump administration plans to limit the classified information it shares with Congress.
The decision came after someone leaked an internal assessment that suggested Saturday's strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities were not as successful as President Trump claimed, four sources told Axios.
The FBI is also investigating the leak.
The administration plans to limit the classified information it shares on CAPNET, the classified information-sharing system used by both the House and Senate, according to the sources.
The leak of the Defense Intelligence Agency's preliminary “Battle Damage Assessment” outraged Trump and other senior officials, who said it was incomplete and that its release was intended to debunk Trump's claims that Iran's nuclear facilities had been “destroyed.”
“We are declaring war on the leakers,” a senior White House official said Wednesday.
Axios first reported the White House plans.
Democratic leaders were already questioning the delay in plans to share information about the US attacks on Iran because the House and Senate were scheduled to receive classified briefings on the attacks in Iran on Tuesday, but they were delayed. The Senate will now receive a report on Thursday, and the House is expected to receive it on Friday.
Top Democrats in Congress are also questioning President Trump's decision to limit intelligence sharing with Capitol Hill following alleged leaks of preliminary assessments of the US attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.
At a NATO news conference in Europe on Wednesday, Trump criticized the Defense Intelligence Agency's (DIA) coverage of the leak, as did Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and national security adviser. They said the United States attacked Iran's three nuclear facilities with so many Tomahawk missiles and massive bunker-buster bombs that Iran's nuclear program suffered a significant setback, echoing the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Hegseth claimed the leak was politically motivated and insisted the bombs fell “precisely where they were supposed to.” He added, “Any assessment to the contrary is speculating about other motives” and called the leak “completely false.” “This whole thing about intelligence: This is what a leaker tells you the intelligence says,” Rubio said.