Somebody inside the federal government may have talked.

Now President Trump’s White House reportedly wants the phones.

A new report says White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and FBI Director Kash Patel personally oversaw an intense operation to identify who leaked sensitive information about the security of the Qatari-supplied aircraft being used as Air Force One.

Officials were reportedly asked to surrender their phones to investigators on White House grounds.

And for roughly seven hours, according to the report, Wiles and Patel operated what one source described as a West Wing “war room.”

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A seven-hour command post inside the West Wing goes well beyond a stern email and a warning.

The target: whoever talked.

CNN’s exclusive report, syndicated by News Channel 3-12, says Patel was preparing to travel to Chicago on Friday when he was redirected to the White House to take a hands-on role in the investigation.

Patel reportedly worked from an office next to Wiles for about seven hours. Investigators sought information from people who traveled with President Trump or played a role in the trip, including personnel spread across multiple federal agencies.

Some officials were asked to provide their cellphones, according to the report, although not everyone who received such a request complied. At least one agency also warned employees to contact its lawyers immediately if outside investigators asked them for information or devices.

The report does not identify the suspected leaker, say how many phones were requested, or claim that anyone has been charged. Those limits matter because the most dramatic operational details come from unnamed sources, not from a public FBI filing.

The White House did, however, publicly confirm the seriousness of the underlying matter.

In a statement included with the report, a White House official said leaks that jeopardize the safety of the President, White House staff, and the traveling press pool are dangerous and threaten national security. The official said the administration would use every legal means available to catch whoever was responsible and prevent another disclosure.

That statement confirms an aggressive hunt for the source.

It does not independently confirm every reported detail about the phones or the West Wing war room.

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The investigation centers on disclosures about the Boeing 747 donated by Qatar and recently placed into service as a presidential aircraft.

During President Trump’s return from a NATO summit in Turkey, the newer plane was sent ahead to RAF Mildenhall in England while the President initially traveled aboard an older Air Force One. He later switched aircraft at the secure British base.

The White House said the plane went ahead so American service members stationed at Mildenhall could tour it. CNN’s sources claimed an updated security assessment also factored into the travel change.

We will not repeat speculative details about the aircraft’s defensive systems here.

The central point is enough: if someone inside the government disclosed sensitive information about the security limitations of a presidential aircraft, the damage would go far beyond political embarrassment.

It could have put the President, his staff, the flight crew, and the traveling press pool at risk.

The reported West Wing operation also comes as the administration is publicly widening its campaign against national-defense leaks.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced Sunday that his department and the Justice Department had created a joint task force to identify and prosecute people who leak sensitive national-defense information.

There has been no public confirmation that Hegseth’s task force and the White House aircraft investigation are formally the same case. The timing and subject matter nevertheless show an administration moving from warnings to enforcement.

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The Justice Department has also issued subpoenas to four New York Times journalists whose reporting addressed security concerns involving the newer aircraft. The newspaper has said it intends to fight those demands.

The Justice Department’s own rules for obtaining evidence from the news media set a demanding standard for that fight.

In criminal matters, investigators should have reasonable grounds to believe a crime occurred and that the requested information is essential to the investigation. The process must be narrowly drawn, and the government generally must first make reasonable efforts to obtain the information from alternative sources.

The rules contain a specific path for unauthorized disclosures of national-defense or classified information. A department or agency head may ask the attorney general to authorize subpoenas or other compulsory process involving members of the news media.

Those safeguards do not prove that these subpoenas are valid, and a subpoena does not mean a journalist committed a crime. They do explain why the coming legal fight could test both national-security authority and press protections at the same time.

The government must respect constitutional boundaries while it investigates.

But a leak involving potential vulnerabilities in the President’s aircraft cannot simply be shrugged off as another day in Washington.

If the new report is accurate, the search has already reached deep into the White House itself.

Somebody may know exactly who talked.

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And Kash Patel appears determined to find out.

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.

 

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