Hegseth Readies Presser For “Dignity of Great American Pilots” As FBI Probes Iran Strike Intel Leak

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the FBI is probing the leak of an intelligence assessment indicating that the U.S. weekend strikes on three Iranian sites only delayed the country’s nuclear program by months rather than completely destroying it.

“We’re doing a leak investigation with the FBI right now because this information is for internal purposes, battle-damage assessments,” Hegseth said at the NATO summit in the Netherlands on June 25.

“And CNN and others are trying to spin it to make the president look bad when this was an overwhelming success.”

President Trump is furious:

Secretary of Defense (War!) Pete Hegseth, together with Military Representatives, will be holding a Major News Conference tomorrow morning at 8 A.M. EST at The Pentagon, in order to fight for the Dignity of our Great American Pilots.

These Patriots were very upset!

After 36 hours of dangerously flying through Enemy Territory, they landed, they knew the Success was LEGENDARY, and then, two days later, they started reading Fake News by CNN and The Failing New York Times.

They felt terribly!

Fortunately for them and, as usual, solely for the purpose of demeaning PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP, the Fake News (Times and CNN) lied and totally misrepresented the Facts, none of which they had (because it was too soon, there were no Facts out there yet!).

The News Conference will prove both interesting and irrefutable.

Enjoy!

In response to The Epoch Times’ Jackson Richman’s request for comment, the FBI said, “In keeping with Department of Justice policy, the FBI can neither confirm nor deny conducting specific investigations.”

Hegseth stood by President Donald Trump’s assessment that the June 21 U.S. strikes on the Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan nuclear sites completely took out Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

“Given the 30,000 pounds of explosives and capability of those munitions, it was devastation underneath Fordow,” Hegseth said.

“And the amount of munitions, six per location, any assessment that tells you that it was something otherwise is speculating with other motives.”

Hegseth noted that the report, which was compiled by the Defense Intelligence Agency, was top-secret and preliminary and that its conclusion is one of low confidence.

“You make assessments based on what you know,” he said.

Hegseth said the leak of the report is motivated by politics.

The assessment—which was first reported by CNN and has been reported by numerous other outlets but not verified by The Epoch Times—said that the strikes did notable damage to the facilities but did not obliterate them.

It also suggested that Iran may have relocated some of its uranium ahead of the strikes.

Vice President JD Vance said on Fox News on June 23 that even if Iran has uranium, it cannot produce a nuclear weapon without the infrastructure.

“If they have 60 percent enriched uranium, but they don’t have the ability to enrich it to 90 percent, and, further, they don’t have the ability to convert that to a nuclear weapon, that is mission success,“ he said.

”That is the obliteration of their nuclear program, which is why the president, I think, rightly is using that term.”

The Trump administration has called the assessment “flat-out wrong,” and Trump said that the end result of the strikes “was obliteration.”

“These leakers are professional stabbers,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at the NATO summit in the Netherlands on June 25.

Appearing on Fox News on June 24, Special Envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff called the leak “treasonous” and said that “it ought to be investigated.”