The Deep State is once again trying to damage President Trump with selective leaks to the left-wing media.
Two ‘sources’ who had intelligence briefings (Obama holdovers) about the strike that killed Iranian military officials leaked portions of the briefings to the New York Times in order to push the narrative that President Trump authorized a drone strike that killed top Iran commander Soleimani with “razor thin” evidence that an attack on American targets was imminent.
Follow this thread from Rukmini Callimachi of the New York Times:
The ‘sources’ claimed Soleimani’s travel to Syria, Lebanon and Iraq to meet with Shia proxies was not suspicious, it was just ‘business as usual.’
2. In fact the evidence pointing to that came as three discrete facts: a) A pattern of travel showing Suleimani was in Syria, Lebanon & Iraq to meet with Shia proxies known to have an offensive position to the US. (As one source said that’s just “business as usual” for Suleimani)
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) January 4, 2020
Soleimani sought the Supreme Leader’s approval for an operation and was supposedly told to travel to Tehran for further guidance and approval for an operation.
4. And finally, a) and b) were read in the context of c) Iran’s increasingly bellicose position towards American interests in Iraq, including the attack that killed a U.S. contractor and the recent protest outside the American embassy.
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) January 4, 2020
Reminder, a US contractor was just killed and several US military personnel were just wounded in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base.
But the sources claimed that was not enough evidence of an imminent attack and called the “reading of the intelligence as an illogical leap.”
6. One official described the planning for the strike as chaotic. The official says that following the attack on an Iraqi base which killed an American contractor circa Dec. 27, Trump was presented a menu of options for how to retaliate. Killing Suleimani was the “far out option”
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) January 4, 2020
The Trump-hating sources then told the NY Times reporter that the planning for the drone strike was “chaotic.”