President Donald Trump said Friday he didn’t know “anything” about what the New York Times reported was a classified 2019 SEAL Team 6 mission in North Korea in which unarmed North Korean civilians were killed during an aborted operation.
The Pentagon and U.S. Special Operations Command declined to comment to ABC News about The New York Times report.
A Navy SEAL conducts reconnaissance from an MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter.
Mass Communication Specialist First Class Scott Fenaroli/US Navy
ABC News has not confirmed the details in the report.
Speaking to reporters from the Oval Office on Friday, Trump was asked by a reporter: “Can you confirm that it happened?”
“I don’t know anything about it. I’m hearing it now for the first time,” he responded.
The account, citing “two dozen people, including civilian government officials, members of the first Trump administration and current and former military personnel with knowledge of the mission” who spoke to the Times anonymously, said Trump had approved the mission.
SEAL Team 6 commandos, the Times said, were to plant a device that would “let the United States intercept the communications of North Korea’s reclusive leader, Kim Jong-un, amid high-level nuclear talks with President Trump.”
The U.S. team members feared they had been spotted by a North Korean boat that was approaching the area, the Times reported. The SEALs opened fire, killing all aboard the boat, according to the Times.
Upon inspection, none of the people in the boat was armed, the Times reported, and evidence “suggested that the crew, which people briefed on the mission said numbered two or three people, had been civilians diving for shellfish.”
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump inside the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating the South and North Korea on June 30, 2019 in Panmunjom, South Korea.
Dong-A Ilbo via Getty Images
The SEALs made it back to their large nuclear-powered submarine nearby and fled the North Korean coast undetected, according to the Times.
No one in the Trump administration informed Congress of the botched mission, the account said.
-ABC News’ Cindy Smith, Anne Flaherty and Luke Barr contributed to this report.
