Defense Secretary Mark Esper made the morning show rounds on Sunday, ostensibly to provide cover for the Trump administration’s claim that Iranian General. Qassem Soleimani posed an “imminent threat” to United States personnel prior to his assassination. In doing so, however, Esper highlighted the administration’s evolving justifications for launching the strike that killed Soleimani, and contradicted President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claim the Iranian commander was planning an attack on “four embassies” in the region.
Speaking with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Esper insisted Trump “never said there was specific intelligence to four different embassies.”
“What the president said was he believed it probably could have been,” Espert told Tapper. “He didn’t cite intelligence.” Continue reading.