Trump, Hegseth Rage Over Bombshell Leak — Reveal FBI Criminal Probe

President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Pete Hegseth raged over bombshell intelligence leaks to CNN and The New York Times and announced a criminal FBI leak investigation on Wednesday.

Trump has been raging for days at CNN and others over their coverage of a series of surprise U.S. airstrikes on nuclear sites in Iran. After the strikes, Trump quickly claimed that all of Iran’s nuclear program had been “completely and totally obliterated” in the attack, but experts and his own officials were more measured and skeptical.

Then, bombshell reporting from CNN and the NYT emerged that an intelligence assessment shows the strikes may only have set Iran’s nuclear program back by a matter of months.

Trump and his officials held a photo op with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at the NATO summit Wednesday, during which Trump was asked about the report.

He and Hegseth pushed back on the reporting, but appeared not to necessarily contradict what the intel assessment said, instead asserting that it was “preliminary” and “low-confidence,” and that included the possibility of “moderate to severe” damage.

The defense secretary also announced that an FBI investigation has already begun:

REPORTER: Mr. President, what’s your reaction to the intelligence reports saying that the Iranian nuclear sites were only partially incapacited, not entirely–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, they said it was, actually the report said it could have been very– they don’t know. I mean they did a report I could have Pete talk to it because his department did the report. They really don’t know.

I think Israel’s going to be telling us very soon because a Bibi is going to have people Involved in that whole situation.

We hear it was obliteration. It was a virtual obliteration. When you take a look at the ground above Don’t forget the flame is all underground But everything above, if you look at the before and the after picture, everything above is burned black, the trees, everything.

And there’s one building, but that’s a building that sunk substantially into the granite. So that, you know, the fire goes right over it.

I believe it was total obliteration. I believe they didn’t have a chance to get anything out because we acted fast. If it would have taken two weeks, maybe, but it’s very hard to remove that kind of material. Very hard and very dangerous for them to remove it.

Plus they knew we were coming, and if they know we’re coming, they’re not going to be down there. There aren’t too many people that are going to down there.

Pete do you have something to say about that?

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE PETE HEGSETH: Well, Mr. President, when you talk to the people who built the bombs, understand what those bombs can do and deliver those bombs, they landed precisely where they were supposed to, so it was a flawless mission, right down where we knew they needed to enter.

And given the 30,000 pounds of explosives and capability of those munitions, it was devastation underneath Fordow. And the amount of munitions? Six per location.

Any assessment that tells you it was something otherwise is speculating with other motives.

And we know that because when you actually look at the report– by the way It was a top-secret report. It was preliminary. It was low confidence, all right?

So this is an you make assessments based on what you know they don’t

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And they said it could be very devastating, very serious.

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE PETE HEGSETH: Moderate to severe, and we believe far more likely severe and obliterated. So this is a political motive here.

REPORTER: Is there a leak investigation?

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE PETE HEGSETH: Of course, we’re doing a leak investigation with the FBI right now because this information is for internal purposes, battle damage assessments, and CNN and others are trying to spin it to make the President look bad when this was an overwhelming success.

Watch above via the White House pool.