President Donald Trump mentioned Friday he did not know “something” about what the New York Instances reported was a labeled 2019 SEAL Crew 6 mission in North Korea through which unarmed North Korean civilians had been killed throughout an aborted operation.
The Pentagon and U.S. Particular Operations Command declined to remark to ABC Information about The New York Times report.
A Navy SEAL conducts reconnaissance from an MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter.
Mass Communication Specialist First Class Scott Fenaroli/US Navy
ABC Information has not confirmed the small print within the report.
Chatting with reporters from the Oval Workplace on Friday, Trump was requested by a reporter: “Are you able to affirm that it occurred?”
“I do not know something about it. I am listening to it now for the primary time,” he responded.
The account, citing “two dozen individuals, together with civilian authorities officers, members of the primary Trump administration and present and former army personnel with data of the mission” who spoke to the Instances anonymously, mentioned Trump had authorized the mission.
SEAL Crew 6 commandos, the Instances mentioned, had been to plant a tool that might “let the US intercept the communications of North Korea’s reclusive chief, Kim Jong-un, amid high-level nuclear talks with President Trump.”
The U.S. crew members feared they’d been noticed by a North Korean boat that was approaching the realm, the Instances reported. The SEALs opened fireplace, killing all aboard the boat, in response to the Instances.
Upon inspection, not one of the individuals within the boat was armed, the Instances reported, and proof “prompt that the crew, which individuals briefed on the mission mentioned numbered two or three individuals, had been civilians diving for shellfish.”
North Korean chief Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump contained in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating the South and North Korea on June 30, 2019 in Panmunjom, South Korea.
Dong-A Ilbo by way of Getty Pictures
The SEALs made it again to their massive nuclear-powered submarine close by and fled the North Korean coast undetected, in response to the Instances.
Nobody within the Trump administration knowledgeable Congress of the botched mission, the account mentioned.
-ABC Information’ Cindy Smith, Anne Flaherty and Luke Barr contributed to this report.
