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    Leaked U.S. Intelligence Suggests Israel Is Preparing to Strike Iran

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    American officials are trying to determine the source of the leak, which describes military drills and weapons placement, and how damaging it might be.The leak of a pair of highly classified U.S. intelligence documents describing recent satellite images of Israeli military preparations for a potential strike on Iran offers a window into the intense American concerns about Israel’s plans. It also has U.S. officials working to understand the size of the improper disclosure.The two documents were prepared in recent days by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which is responsible for analyzing images and information collected by American spy satellites. They began circulating on Friday on the Telegram app and were being discussed by largely pro-Iran accounts.The documents, which offer interpretations of satellite imagery, provide insight into a potential strike by Israel on Iran in the coming days. Such a strike has been anticipated in retaliation for an Iranian assault earlier this month, which was itself a response to an Israeli attack.One of the documents is titled “Israel: Air Force Continues Preparations for Strike on Iran,” and describes recent exercises that appeared to rehearse elements of such a strike. The second document details how Israel is shifting the placement of its missiles and weapons in case Iran responded with strikes of its own.Officials were divided over the seriousness of the leak, which did not appear to reveal any new American capabilities. The documents describe but do not show the satellite images. If no further documents come to light the damage would be limited, some of the officials say — besides revealing, once again, the degree to which the United States spies on one of its closest allies. Other officials say that any exposure of an ally’s war plans is a serious problem.Officials privately acknowledged that the documents were authentic, although the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      After Just a Week, the N.Y.P.D. Commissioner Faces a Crisis of His Own

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      Thomas G. Donlon, brought in to bring stability to the Police Department when his predecessor resigned, had his homes searched by federal agents.In his first week as New York City’s interim police commissioner, Thomas G. Donlon responded to a police shooting that injured four people, including one of his own officers.He then had to prepare for the U.N. General Assembly, an annual logistical and security challenge that was compounded by deepening conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon and Ukraine.On Friday, trouble came for the commissioner himself: Federal agents arrived at the residences of Mr. Donlon, 71, a former F.B.I. counterterrorism official hired after his predecessor departed amid an investigation. They seized documents that he said had come into his possession about 20 years ago.According to two federal officials with knowledge of the matter, the materials that the agents sought were classified documents.For a department and a city roiled by report after report of search warrants, resignations, subpoenas and investigations by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, this latest development took a turn into the absurd.“At a certain point, we all would walk out of the movie theater because the script was just too fantastical, incredulous, and unbelievable for real-life,” Jumaane Williams, the city’s public advocate, said in a social media post.Tracking Investigations in Eric Adams’s OrbitSeveral federal corruption inquiries have reached into the world of Mayor Eric Adams of New York, who faces re-election next year. Here is a closer look at how people with ties to Adams are related to the inquiries.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Memoir Offers an Insider’s Perspective Into the Pentagon’s U.F.O. Hunt

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      In “Imminent,” the former intelligence official who ran a once-secret program shares some of what he knows.Luis Elizondo made headlines in 2017 when he resigned as a senior intelligence official running a shadowy Pentagon program investigating U.F.O.s and publicly denounced the excessive secrecy, lack of resources and internal opposition that he said were thwarting the effort.Elizondo’s disclosures at the time created a sensation. They were buttressed by explosive videos and testimony from Navy pilots who had encountered unexplained aerial phenomena, and led to congressional inquiries, legislation and a 2023 House hearing in which a former U.S. intelligence official testified that the federal government has retrieved crashed objects of nonhuman origin.Now Elizondo, 52, has gone further in a new memoir. In the book he asserted that a decades-long U.F.O. crash retrieval program has been operating as a supersecret umbrella group made up of government officials working with defense and aerospace contractors. Over the years, he wrote, technology and biological remains of nonhuman origin have been retrieved from these crashes.“Humanity is, in fact, not the only intelligent life in the universe, and not the alpha species,” Elizondo wrote.The book, “Imminent: Inside the Pentagon’s Hunt for U.F.O.s,” is being published by HarperCollins on Aug. 20 after a yearlong security review by the Pentagon.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Defense Dept. Contractor Arrested With Dozens of Classified Documents

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      Investigators are still trying to determine why the contractor, Gokhan Gun, who became an American citizen in 2021, hoarded so many documents.A Defense Department contractor was arrested on Friday with dozens of highly classified documents he had obtained using his security clearance, as he prepared to depart for a trip to Mexico, according to prosecutors.The contractor, Gokhan Gun, an electrical engineer born in Turkey who now lives in a Virginia suburb of Washington, printed thousands of documents at his work for the Air Force. Many were unclassified, but some were “batches of documents from the top secret network,” according to an 11-page complaint unsealed in a Virginia federal court.Mr. Gun is charged with illegally obtaining and retaining national defense secrets.The case is one of several instances in recent years in which soldiers and civilians working for the military improperly retained military secrets. In March, a young Massachusetts Air National Guardsman, Jack Teixeira, accused of posting secret intelligence reports online, pleaded guilty in exchange for a 16-year sentence and an agreement to document his activities to the authorities.Investigators are still trying to determine why Mr. Gun, who became an American citizen in 2021, hoarded so many documents. He nonchalantly carried them out of his office in rolled-up wads in plastic shopping bags, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the case.Mr. Gun, who frequently travels overseas and owns homes in Virginia, Texas and Florida, was taken into custody early Friday by F.B.I. agents who arrived to execute a search warrant at his house in Falls Church, Va. He was preparing to leave for what he described as a fishing trip with friends, intending to board a flight to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, that left at 6:52 a.m.Agents confronted him in his driveway as he awaited a ride share driver. Among his luggage they found a black backpack that contained a document marked top secret and a listing of his security clearances.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      South Korea Reports Leak From a Top Intelligence Agency

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      It’s highly unusual for the nation’s authorities to publicly acknowledge a leak from the command​, which is one of South Korea’s top two spy agencies.South Korea was investigating a leak from its top military intelligence command​ that ​local news media said had caused a large amount of sensitive information, including personal data on the command’s agents abroad, to end up in North Korea, its military said Saturday.The military said in a brief statement that it planned to “deal sternly with” those responsible for the leak. But it declined to confirm the local media reports, pending its investigation of the Korea ​Defense Intelligence Command,​ where the leak took place.The command, a secretive arm of the South Korean military, specializes in gathering intelligence on North Korea, a heavily militarized country that often threatens ​its southern neighbor with nuclear weapons.It’s highly unusual for the South Korean authorities to publicly acknowledge a leak from the command​, which is one of South Korea’s top two spy agencies, along with the National Intelligence Service.The intelligence command runs a network of agents, including those disguised ​as South Korean diplomats or using other undercover identities, in China and other parts of Asia.The agents often spend years recruiting North Koreans overseas as their contacts. The information they collect augments the intelligence that the United States and its allies collect on North Korea through spy satellites or by intercepting electronic communications.If personal data about the agents ended up in North Korea, that could seriously damage South Korea’s ability to gather intelligence on the North.The last time a major breach of security was reported at the command was in 2018, when an active-duty military officer affiliated with the command was found to have sold classified information to foreign agents in China and Japan through a retired ​South Korean intelligence officer. The information he sold reportedly included data on the command’s agents in China or data on North Korean weaponry.North and South Korea run vigorous intelligence and counterintelligence operations against each other. South Korea still occasionally ​arrests people accused of spying for North Korea. In recent years, North Korea has also used an army of hackers to attack computer networks in the United States, South Korea and elsewhere to steal information or cryptocurrency.On Thursday, the United States, Britain and South Korea issued a joint advisory warning that North Korea​’s hackers have conducted a global cyber espionage campaign to steal classified military secrets to support​ its nuclear weapons program​.The U.S. Justice Department said ​on Thursday that a North Korean military intelligence operative had been indicted in​ a conspiracy to hack into American health care providers, NASA, U.S. military bases and international entities, stealing sensitive information and installing ransomware to fund more attacks​. A reward of up to $10 million has been offered for information that could lead to ​the arrest of the alleged North Korean operative, Rim Jong Hyok​. More

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      Judge Denies Effort by Trump Co-Defendant to Have Charges Dismissed

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      Walt Nauta, a personal aide to former President Donald J. Trump, claimed that he was the victim of vindictive prosecution in the classified documents case.The federal judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s classified documents case on Saturday rejected an effort by one of his co-defendants to have the charges he is facing dismissed by claiming that he was the victim of a vindictive prosecution by the government.The co-defendant, Walt Nauta, who works as a personal aide to Mr. Trump, had accused prosecutors in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, of unfairly indicting him because he declined to help their efforts to build a case against the former president by testifying against him in front of a grand jury.Mr. Nauta’s lawyer, Stanley Woodward Jr., also claimed that at a meeting at the Justice Department two years ago, prosecutors had threatened to derail a judgeship he was seeking if he did not prevail on his client to turn on Mr. Trump.But in an order issued on Saturday night, Judge Aileen M. Cannon rejected those arguments, ruling that even though Mr. Nauta had refused to provide testimony against Mr. Trump, there was “no evidence suggesting that charges were brought to punish him for doing so.”And while Judge Cannon refused to weigh in on the details about Mr. Woodward’s claims that prosecutors had sought to twist his arm to win Mr. Nauta’s cooperation, she denied his vindictive prosecution motion because, as she noted, he had claimed that the government was biased against him, not against his client, as required by the law.The indictment in the documents case, which was filed last June in Federal District Court in Fort Pierce, Fla., accuses Mr. Nauta of conspiring with Mr. Trump to hide from the government several boxes of classified materials that the former president removed from the White House when he left office and took to Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Julian Assange Pleads Guilty to Espionage, Securing His Freedom

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      The WikiLeaks founder, who entered the plea in a U.S. courtroom in Saipan in the Western Pacific, now plans to fly home to Australia.Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to a felony charge of violating the U.S. Espionage Act, securing his freedom under a plea deal that saw its final act play out in a remote U.S. courtroom in Saipan in the Western Pacific.He appeared in court wearing a black suit with his lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, and Kevin Rudd, the Australian ambassador to the United States. He stood briefly and offered his plea more than a decade after he obtained and published classified secret military and diplomatic documents in 2010, moving a twisted case involving several countries and U.S. presidents closer to its conclusion. It was all part of an agreement allowing him to return to his native country, Australia, after spending more than five years in British custody — most of it fighting extradition to the United States.His family and lawyers documented his journey from London to Bangkok and on to Saipan, capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth, posting photos and videos online from a chartered jet. His defense team said that in the negotiations over his plea deal, Mr. Assange had refused to appear in a court on the U.S. mainland, and that he had not been allowed to fly commercial.His wife, Stella, posted an urgent fund-raising appeal on the social media platform X, seeking help in covering the $520,000 cost of the flight, which she said would have to be repaid to the Australian government. She also wrote on X that watching a video of Mr. Assange entering the courtroom made her think of “how overloaded his senses must be, walking through the press scrum after years of sensory deprivation and the four walls of his high-security Belmarsh prison cell.”In court, Mr. Assange responded carefully to questions from U.S. District Judge Ramona Manglona, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama. He defended his actions, describing himself as a journalist seeking information from sources, a task he said he saw as legal and constitutionally protected. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Lawyers Argue Barring Attacks on F.B.I. Would Censor ‘Political Speech’

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      In a filing, the lawyers in the classified documents case made an aggressive, and at times misleading, argument against prosecutors’ request for the judge to curb his attacks on agents.Lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump pushed back on Friday night in an aggressive — and at times misleading — way against an effort to curb his public attacks on the F.B.I. agents working on his classified documents case in Florida.In a 20-page court filing, the lawyers assailed prosecutors in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, for seeking to limit Mr. Trump’s remarks about the F.B.I. on the eve of two consequential political events: the first presidential debate, scheduled for June 27, and the Republican National Convention, set to start on July 15.“The motion is a naked effort to impose totalitarian censorship of core political speech, under threat of incarceration, in a clear attempt to silence President Trump’s arguments to the American people about the outrageous nature of this investigation and prosecution,” the lawyers wrote.The dispute began last month when Mr. Smith’s team asked Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who is overseeing the case, to revise Mr. Trump’s conditions of release to bar him from making any public remarks that might endanger agents involved in the proceeding.The request came days after Mr. Trump made a series of blatantly false statements, claiming that the F.B.I. had been prepared to shoot him when agents executed a search warrant in August 2022 at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida. In that search, the agents discovered more than 100 classified documents. Mr. Trump is now charged with illegally retaining classified information and obstructing the government’s attempts to retrieve it.The distortions arose from a gross mischaracterization by the former president of a recently unsealed order for the Mar-a-Lago search that included boilerplate language intended to limit the use of deadly force when agents execute warrants.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Prosecutors Seek to Bar Trump From Attacking F.B.I. Agents in Documents Case

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      The prosecutors said the former president had made “grossly misleading” assertions about the F.B.I.’s search of Mar-a-Lago that could endanger the agents involved.Federal prosecutors on Friday night asked the judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s classified documents case to bar him from making any statements that might endanger law enforcement agents involved in the proceedings.Prosecutors said Mr. Trump had recently made “grossly misleading” assertions about the F.B.I.’s search of Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida, two years ago. The request came just days after the former president falsely suggested that the F.B.I. had been authorized to shoot him when agents descended on Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 and discovered more than 100 classified documents while executing a court-approved search warrant.In a social media post on Tuesday, Mr. Trump falsely claimed that President Biden “authorized the FBI to use deadly (lethal) force” during the search.Mr. Trump’s post was a reaction to an F.B.I. operational plan for the Mar-a-Lago search that was unsealed on Tuesday as part of a legal motion filed by Mr. Trump’s lawyers. The plan contained a boilerplate reference to lethal force being authorized as part of the search, which prosecutors said Mr. Trump had distorted.“As Trump is well aware, the F.B.I. took extraordinary care to execute the search warrant unobtrusively and without needless confrontation,” prosecutors wrote in a motion to Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who is overseeing the case.“They scheduled the search of Mar-a-Lago for a time when he and his family would be away,” the prosecutor added. “They planned to coordinate with Trump’s attorney, Secret Service agents and Mar-a-Lago staff before and during the execution of the warrant; and they planned for contingencies — which, in fact, never came to pass — about with whom to communicate if Trump were to arrive on the scene.”The request to Judge Cannon was the first time that prosecutors have sought to restrict Mr. Trump’s public statements in the case.Prosecutors did not seek to impose a gag order on Mr. Trump, but instead asked Judge Cannon to revise his conditions of release to forbid him from making any public comments “that pose a significant, imminent and foreseeable danger to law enforcement agents participating in the investigation.” More