Trump targets media to find ‘leaker’ who revealed that a US airman was missing after being shot down by Iranian forces
Donald Trump threatened to jail a journalist – or journalists – who reported that a second US airman was missing after being shot down by Iran on Friday in an effort to identify their source.
The badly injured airman hid in a mountain crevice to avoid capture before being rescued by a US recovery team that received heavy fire. The US president announced on Sunday that the service member had been recovered.
During a press conference at the White House on Monday afternoon, Trump told reporters that his government was aggressively pursuing the “leaker” who revealed information about the missing airman to the media. He claimed that the news report put Iran on notice and put the airman in danger.
“They basically said that ‘we have one and there’s somebody missing.’ Well, they didn’t know there was somebody missing until this leaker gave the information,” Trump said. “So whoever it was, 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.’
