President Donald Trump said Monday that a “sick person” leaked information about the downed U.S. fighter jet to media outlets and threatened jail time for reporters if they don’t reveal the leaker’s identity.
Trump said the U.S. mission to rescue one of the American airmen who went down in Iran was placed “at great risk” because of the leak and the ensuing media reports. The Iranian regime placed a bounty on the missing U.S. F-15 fighter weapons systems officer, who was forced to hide in a mountain crevice for nearly two days as armed Iranians searched for the American.
“We’re looking very hard to find that leaker,” Trump told reporters in the White House briefing room, adding, “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.'”
“Some things you can’t do because when they did that, all of a sudden, the entire country of Iran knew that there was a pilot that was somewhere on their land that was fighting for his life,” Trump said. “And it also made it much more difficult for the pilots and for the people going in to search for him.”
President Trump vows to hunt down leaker who put rescue mission ‘at great risk’ pic.twitter.com/RyJ7Smlgv2
— Kassy Akiva (@KassyAkiva) April 6, 2026
Trump did not say to which outlet the administration believes the leaker sent the sensitive information. The New York Times and CNN were among the first outlets to report that one of the two U.S. pilots was rescued while a search and rescue operation had begun for the missing pilot. In its first report on the unfolding rescue operation, The New York Times cited “U.S. and Israeli” officials, and CNN cited three “U.S. sources” in its initial report on the missing pilot.
Journalists who publish sensitive or even classified information are protected in many states and in Washington, D.C., under shield laws, provided they obtained the material without coercion and did not ask anyone to break the law. However, there are no federal protections for publishing classified information.
The Trump administration has sought to crack down on leakers within the federal government and prevent reporters from publishing classified information. The Justice Department was recently blocked by a federal judge from searching the devices of a Washington Post reporter as federal investigators looked into a government contractor who was accused of leaking classified government materials.
The second airman, who was badly injured, was rescued early on Sunday as U.S. forces carried out a dangerous mission inside Iran. Trump described the rescue mission as a “massive operation” that involved 155 aircraft, including bombers, fighter jets, refueling tankers, and rescue units. After confirming the weapons systems officer’s location, U.S. troops engaged with enemy forces and extracted the airman.
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