(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) The White House pushed back Friday on reporting from several outlets claiming that Israel’s aggressive spying on U.S. officials has raised concerns within the Trump administration’s intelligence community.
Israel has long been accused of conducting intelligence operations targeting the U.S. However, recent reporting suggested that those activities have intensified, particularly as President Donald Trump conducts peace negotiations with Iran.
NBC News and The New York Times were the first entities to report on the concerns, citing two unnamed current U.S. officials and one unnamed former U.S. official.
Among the individuals reportedly targeted were Trump peace envoy Steve Witkoff, Pentagon policy official Elbridge A. Colby, and one of his deputies, Michael P. DiMino IV.
The report was drafted after U.S. defense personnel stationed in Israel allegedly found surveillance software that had been “surreptitiously” installed on their phones, according to The New York Times.
Meanwhile, NBC News reported that the DIA assessment described Israel’s intelligence operation as occurring at a “critical” level, both in terms of human intelligence collection and technical surveillance operations.
The DIA similarly posted an internal message that raised the counterintelligence threat by Israel as “critical,” according to NBC News.
The Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., rejected the characterization through a spokesperson, calling it “completely false.” The embassy denied that Israel conducts intelligence operations against U.S. officials or institutions.
“Israel intelligence collection efforts are aimed at its enemies, not its allies. Any claims to the contrary are either misinformed or politically motivated,” the spokesperson added.
The White House also rejected NBC News’ framing of the assessment, saying: “This entire story is false and sourced to someone who doesn’t have any knowledge of what’s going on.”
