President Donald Trump on Friday afternoon denied any knowledge of a reported 2019 botched SEAL Team 6 operation in North Korea, telling a reporter who asked him for a reaction that he was “hearing it now for the first time.”
Newsweek reached out via email to the White House for clarification and further comment on Friday evening.
Why It Matters
The purported mission would evidence the U.S. failing to achieve an intelligence objective against a country with which officials had engaged in sensitive diplomatic talks.
The Pentagon and White House rarely—if ever—comment on any SEAL Team 6 missions.
Trump has continued to seek talks with North Korea since returning to office for his second term, but has found the nation less receptive than during his first presidency. North Korean officials rejected a letter from Trump intended to open the door for dialogue.
The ostensible goal for the talks would entail steps toward a peace deal between North and South Korea, ending a decades-long tense standoff between the neighboring nations.
What To Know
The New York Times on Friday released a report on a 2019 operation to plant a listening device that would have allowed the United States to intercept communications from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at a time when the U.S. was holding high-level nuclear talks with the Hermit Kingdom.
According to the Times, the operation did not pan out as planned once a boat started sweeping the water, prompting fears that the SEAL team had been spotted while heading for shore. The team opened fire, killing everyone on the boat, then retreating without completing the mission, per the report.
Due to the extreme sensitivity of the mission, the Times said, it would have required Trump’s direct approval.
When asked about the mission during a press briefing in the Oval Office on Friday, Trump said: “I don’t know anything about it.”
“I’d have to look, but I don’t know anything about it,” the president replied, adding, “I’m hearing it now for the first time.” The reporter had also asked if Trump had spoken with or engaged with North Korea since the purported incident, which he did not address.
The Pentagon provided Newsweek with “no comment” when reached via email on Friday afternoon.
The SEAL Team 6 Red Squadron—the same unit that killed Al-Qaeda founder and Sept. 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden—had been selected for the mission, and the team had practiced for months beforehand.
What Is SEAL Team 6?
SEAL Team 6 is the nickname given to the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, a component of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). The team often undertakes classified missions on which neither the Pentagon nor the White House will usually offer comment.
The group is the Navy’s equivalent of the Delta Force, emerging to prominent public notice in the aftermath of bin Laden’s killing.
Journalist Sean Naylor, national security reporter for 20 years at Army Times, in 2015 published a book detailing the history of JSOC and some of its missions, like a 2008 mission during which SEAL Team 6 launched a raid from Afghanistan into Pakistan to find Al-Qaeda leaders.
The Times also covered the release of the book, which has proved the most comprehensive, if unauthorized, look at the operations of a team that has “engaged in combat so intimate that they have emerged soaked in blood that was not their own.”
“Around the world, they have run spying stations disguised as commercial boats, posed as civilian employees of front companies and operated undercover at embassies as male-female pairs, tracking those the United States wants to kill or capture,” the Times wrote.
Trump Sought Nuke Deal With North Korea
Trump, during his first administration, attempted to engage in the same kind of deal-making that he has touted throughout his second term. During those first four years, he notched some considerable wins—most notably, the Abraham Accords between Israel and several Middle East nations.
The president initially sought a nuclear weapons deal with North Korea, but settled for a 2018 signed joint statement, which laid out four goals for Kim to achieve: commit to establish new relations with the U.S.; build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula; commit to work toward a complete denuclearization of the peninsula; and recover POW/MIA remains and repatriate them.
The talks would have potentially proved a vital turning point in negotiations, but the coronavirus pandemic radically altered the trajectory of any such discourse. Once Trump left office, the possibility for any deal with the increasingly reclusive North Korea—which suffered greatly during the pandemic—turned more unlikely.
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