US sources have indicated to The Jerusalem Post that they reject the Saturday Pentagon leak to NBC News claiming Israeli espionage activity against the US and a related special alert, defining them as likely anti-Epic Fury sources.
In other words, there have always been “America First” forces within the US, and even within the Pentagon, who oppose American intervention in Iran and are angry at Israel for its role in helping convince US President Donald Trump to go to war.
The Pentagon neither responded nor denied the original report and had not done so by press time on Sunday night. The CIA also had not responded to Post regarding the report by press time and is not identified in the report as having any particular role.
The White House has already denigrated the report and criticized the Pentagon sources who leaked it; Israel also categorically denied it and any notion of spying on the US.
Israeli and Mossad officials have denied spying on the US since the mid-1980s Jonathan Pollard spying incident, which shook the allies’ relations at the time.
In recent decades, intelligence sharing between both countries has been so extensive that the standard view is that there would be no need to spy on what is already being voluntarily shared by both sides.
Israel likewise has shared highly confidential intelligence regarding Iran with successive US administrations.
The report raised credibility concerns, given that during the 2026 Iran war, senior IDF officials entered top-secret US command centers, senior US military officials entered Israeli command centers, and a large number of US military aircraft were operating out of Ben-Gurion Airport.
US and Israeli sources seemingly believe that those leaking the story were a minority group within the Pentagon who opposed the war in Iran, were critical of Israel, and were trying to take advantage of the public daylight between Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when the former called the latter “f***ing crazy” recently over Netanyahu’s desire to strike Beirut.
According to the NBC report, the Pentagon raised its estimates of Israeli espionage activity against the United States to the highest level in history.
The report claimed that the Pentagon has raised its counterintelligence threat assessment of Israel to the highest possible, primarily due to tensions between Israeli and American officials over how to proceed in the war with Iran and its proxy terror groups.
Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency out of step with Trump administration
According to the officials cited by NBC, an internal message issued by the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency reportedly raised the threat assessment level for Israel to “critical.”
However, the DIA has been out of step with the rest of the Trump administration numerous times. After the June 2025 war, the agency predicted that Iran could re-field nuclear weapons within a matter of months.
A year after that prediction, Iran has not even been able to access its 60% enriched uranium, covered in the rubble of its bombed nuclear facilities.
But the DIA report was viewed at the time as a clear sign that the agency was less on board with Trump’s policy of using military force against Iran.
Likewise, following the 2026 war with Iran, there have been occasional US intelligence leaks undermining the Trump narrative of the war’s success, which some have attributed to the DIA.
The DIA assessment included a seven-page brief on the threat level and even featured charts, according to the NBC sources. The New York Times reported that the decision to raise the threat level was taken after US personnel operating in Israel reported that software to tap their communications had been installed on their phones.
Nothing in the reports indicated whether any information had in fact been taken.
Israeli Embassy of Washington denies espionage allegations
The Israeli Embassy of Washington said in a statement that the espionage claims were “completely false,” with a spokesperson adding that “Israel does not gather intelligence on American entities, let alone US government officials.”
“Israel’s intelligence collection efforts are aimed at its enemies, not its allies. Any claims to the contrary are either misinformed or politically motivated,” the statement added.
A White House official told NBC that the story was “false and sourced to someone who doesn’t have any knowledge of what’s going on.”