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Donald Trump wants to know who leaked details about the missing U.S. airman who was rescued from the mountains of Iran in a high-stakes mission on Sunday.

The U.S. carried out a daring operation to extract two airmen who ejected from the F-15E fighter jet that was shot down by Iranian forces on Friday. The military plucked the pilot out of Iranian territory on Friday, and later pulled out the second service member who was hiding in the mountains.

But during a press conference on Monday, Trump accused a media organization of jeopardizing the mission for reporting that a second airman was missing on Friday. He did not name the media organization, but threatened to jail the journalist who first reported that a second airman was missing.

  • tomatolung@sopuli.xyz
    9·
    2 days ago

    The president did not share any names as to the leaker, the journalists, or the media outlets that he believed had publicized the story. But after his comments, some members of the press pointed toward Fox News and The Washington Post for being among the first to land the scoop.

    Yet those media companies were not the only ones to report that one member of the military had been unaccounted for after the initial rescue on Friday: Reuters also reported at the time that just one of the aircrew had been rescued. Hours later, the outlet reported that a search and rescue was underway.

    Other journalists jumped to claim the scoop, even after Trump’s threat. Amit Segal—an Israeli journalist with ties to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—said on his Telegram chat later Monday that he was the first to report the story.

    “As you may recall, this was first published here,” Segal wrote.