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Democratic lawmakers in Congress are furious after the Trump administration announced plans to limit classified information that is typically shared with both houses of the legislature, following a leak regarding the U.S.’s recent military strikes on Iran.
After President Donald Trump and members of his cabinet claimed his ordered attacks on three sites in Iran last weekend “obliterated” the country’s nuclear capabilities, a leaked intelligence document disputed that assertion, suggesting that the strikes had only set Iran’s nuclear program back by a few months.
Trump fumed at the leak, implying that media had only published the information to make him look bad.
“CNN is scum, MSDNC [sic] is scum, the New York Times is scum. They’re bad people, they’re sick,” Trump told reporters at the NATO summit at The Hague on Wednesday.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made similar comments, stating that those disputing whether the strikes had achieved their intended outcome were simply “trying to spin it to make the president look bad.” He also said the FBI was conducting an investigation into the leak.
The White House is now apparently planning to limit how classified information is to be shared with Congress in the future.
There’s no credible evidence that the intelligence was leaked by a member of Congress, and such limits would be a major breach of protocol, making it more difficult for lawmakers on the Hill to oversee the administration’s military actions, for example. The White House typically shares classified documents to a system called CAPNET, which is used by members of both the House of Representatives and the Senate to examine intelligence briefings.
Axios was the first to report on the plans, citing sources with knowledge of the administration’s thinking; ABC News also spoke with sources that confirmed the White House’s plans to limit intelligence sharing.
Democratic lawmakers blasted the planned moves.
“This isn’t about national security — it’s about Trump’s insecurity,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) told Axios. “President Trump is cutting off intelligence to Congress, raising one clear question: what is he hiding?”
Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) also questioned the justification for limiting intelligence sent to Congress, saying that the catalyst for the decision was that the White House is “embarrassed by the leak” and the fact that “it suggested they did not obliterate the Iran nuclear program as promised.”
House Intelligence Committee ranking member Rep. Jim Himes (D-Connecticut) described both the leak itself and the administration’s plans to limit intelligence sharing as “unacceptable.”
“The law requires the congressional intelligence committees to be kept fully and currently informed, and I expect the Intelligence Community to comply with the law,” Himes said.
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