White House slams bombshell leak from US officials on new ‘critical’ threat – from US ally
The White House dismissed a report published Friday night in which two U.S. officials claimed that the Pentagon had raised its counterintelligence threat level from a top U.S. ally to “critical,” the “highest level,” according to NBC News.Two U.S. officials and one former U.S. official, speaking with NBC News under the condition of anonymity, claimed that the Pentagon had grown “increasingly concerned about Israel ramping up its spying on the U.S.,” the outlet reported, and that in “recent weeks,” the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) had increased Israel’s threat level to the highest level.“The designation stems from concerns within the Pentagon that Israel is making a particular effort to surveil top U.S. officials to get information on the Trump administration’s internal deliberations and decision-making on the conflicts in the Middle East, the officials said,” NBC News’ report reads.“The DIA assessment includes a seven-page document and features a chart, according to one of the current U.S. officials. The document says the assessment of Israel is that its ability to conduct human espionage and technical collection is at a ‘critical level,’ according to the official.”While the Pentagon declined to respond to NBC News’ request for comment, the White House dismissed the outlet’s reporting entirely.“This entire story is false and sourced to someone who doesn’t have any knowledge of what’s going on,” a White House official told NBC News.Israel also fiercely denied the allegation, with a spokesperson for the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. telling NBC News that Israel “does not gather intelligence on American entities, let alone US government officials.”Despite Israel’s claim, numerous reports have suggested Israeli operatives have engaged in “widespread surveillance” of American entities. In 2025, the scale of Israel’s alleged surveillance on U.S. service members at a U.S. military base in southern Israel had grown so expansive that U.S. Lt. Gen. Patrick Frank summoned an Israeli official for a meeting and told them that the “recording has to stop here,” The Guardian previously reported.
