President Donald Trump threatened jail time Monday for the journalist who first reported that an airman was still missing after a fighter jet went down in Iran last week.
The high-risk and eventually successful attempt to rescue the weapons officer occurred over the Easter holiday weekend and was reported by several outlets, including the New York Times, which Trump has previously branded as “fake news.” The president did not single out a specific news organization but suggested the administration would prosecute if the journalist did not name his or her source.
“Somebody leaked something, which we’ll hopefully find that leaker,” Trump said during a Monday afternoon press conference on the Iran war. “We’re looking very hard to find that leaker.”
Speaking from the White House briefing room, Trump said the administration would approach the news outlet and try to extract the information on national security grounds despite the First Amendment protections afforded to the news industry.
“We think we’ll be able to find it out, because we’re going to go to the media company that released it, and we’re going to say, ‘National security, give it up or go to jail,’” Trump continued.
The U.S. military was able to rescue the pilot of the downed F-15 jet, but it took longer to identify and extract the second missing airman after their aircraft went down on Friday.
“It also made it much more difficult for the pilots and for the people going in to search for him,” Trump said. “All of a sudden, they know that there’s somebody out there. They see all these planes coming in. It became a much more difficult operation because a leaker leaked that we have one, we’ve rescued one, but there’s another out there that we’re trying to get.”
Trump called the leaker a “sick person” and again reiterated that the journalist would “go to jail” if they did not reveal their source.
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CIA Director John Ratcliffe and War Secretary Pete Hegseth also took the podium, hailing Trump’s leadership in the battle to rescue two U.S. service members stranded in Iran.
“Following the successful exfiltration on Saturday night, our intelligence reflects that the Iranians were embarrassed and ultimately humiliated by the success of this audacious rescue mission,” said Ratcliffe.