Washington D.C. – The Trump administration is moving to significantly restrict the sharing of classified information with Congress, a dramatic escalation following the leak of an internal intelligence assessment that suggested Saturday’s bombings of Iran’s nuclear facilities were less successful than initially claimed by President Donald Trump. The FBI has launched an investigation into the leak, as the White House declares a “war on leakers.”
The controversy stems from a preliminary “Battle Damage Assessment” by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which was posted on CAPNET – a system used for sharing classified information with Congress – late Monday. By Tuesday afternoon, snippets of the assessment were reported by CNN and The New York Times, indicating that Iran’s nuclear program had been set back by only a matter of months, starkly contradicting the administration’s claims of “obliteration.”
“We are declaring a war on leakers,” a senior White House official said on Wednesday, expressing outrage over the release of what they described as an incomplete assessment aimed at undermining President Trump’s public statements. The official added, “The FBI is investigating the leak. The intelligence community is figuring out how to tighten up their processes so we don’t have ‘Deep State’ actors leaking parts of intel analysis that have ‘low confidence’ to the media.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, speaking at the NATO summit in Europe on Wednesday, confirmed the FBI investigation, asserting that the leak was an attempt to “spin it to make the president look bad when this was an overwhelming success.” He emphasized that the leaked DIA assessment was “a preliminary, low-confidence assessment, not a final conclusion, and will continue to be refined as additional intelligence becomes available.” Hegseth further stated, “We have still not been able to review the actual physical sites themselves, which will give us the best indication.”
The administration plans to limit future postings on CAPNET as a direct consequence of the leak. “Go figure: Almost as soon as we put the information on CAPNET, it leaks,” an administration source commented, adding, “There’s no reason to do this again.”
This move is likely to intensify friction with Democrats in Congress, who were already critical of the administration’s refusal to brief some members before the bombings. Lawmakers had a classified briefing on the strikes abruptly cancelled on Tuesday, fueling suspicions of withheld information.
Sources familiar with the leaked DIA assessment, while unable to disclose full details, underscored three key aspects of the report:
- It was compiled within 24 hours of the bombings, based solely on satellite photos, lacking on-the-ground witness accounts.
- It represented an early “snapshot” from only one of the 18 agencies within the intelligence community.
- The report itself acknowledged the “low confidence” of its assessment, intended as a tool to guide potential future strikes.
In contrast to the DIA’s preliminary findings, Israeli intelligence services have offered an early assessment claiming the U.S. and Israeli strikes caused “very significant” damage.
President Trump, who has harbored deep suspicions of the intelligence community since his 2016 campaign, views these disclosures as further evidence of a “Deep State” attempting to undermine his presidency. One adviser noted, “Trump knows the IC [intelligence community] has spooks who hate his guts.”
During a NATO press conference, President Trump, Secretary Hegseth, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio all criticized the media coverage of the DIA leak. They maintained that the U.S. strikes, involving 14 GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs on the Natanz and Fordow nuclear facilities and over two dozen Tomahawk missiles on the Isfahan facility, significantly set back Iran’s nuclear program. This stance echoes the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Secretary Rubio, in an interview with Politico, commented on the frustration of intelligence leaks: “All this stuff about the intelligence: This is what a leaker is telling you the intelligence says. That’s the game these people play. They read it and then they go out and characterize it the way they want to characterize it.” He added, “intelligence leaks are one of the most frustrating things anywhere, not just because you’ve got somebody who has access to this putting stuff out there, but because it’s so often mischaracterized.”
General Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, offered a more cautious perspective, stating that battle damage assessments are “still pending, and it would be way too early for me to comment on what may or may not still be there.”
“This is what the media does. They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees and then they try to slash and burn people and ruin their reputations. Not going to work with me.” – Pete Hegseth, U.S. Defense Secretary.
This marks the second public leak investigation launched by the Pentagon since President Trump’s inauguration in January. In March, then-Chief of Staff Joe Kasper initiated an investigation into the leak of classified plans regarding a potential U.S. war against China, which led to the cancellation of a meeting with Elon Musk. That investigation resulted in the dismissals of senior adviser Dan Caldwell, deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick, and Colin Carroll, chief of staff to the deputy secretary of defense. All three maintain their innocence, stating they were “incredibly disappointed” by their dismissals and had not been told “what exactly we were investigated for.”
Following these dismissals, another damaging story emerged – reported by The Atlantic and The New York Times – detailing how Secretary Hegseth shared operational details about impending military operations against the Houthis in Yemen in two Signal group chats, one of which inadvertently included an Atlantic reporter. Hegseth blamed these “disgruntled former employees” for purportedly leaking this subsequent story, stating, “This is what the media does. They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees and then they try to slash and burn people and ruin their reputations. Not going to work with me.”
