Concerns over what else could be leaked from the White House begged the question “What took them so long?” amid calls for a criminal probe.
Throughout President Donald Trump’s second administration, quietly executed plans like the extradition of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and Operation Midnight Hammer have conveyed the capacity to keep things buttoned up.
However, efforts across the federal government to curb leaks haven’t proven perfect, and with a new book from Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan raising alarms about potential secret recordings of Situation Room meetings, New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin contended a “furious” Trump should take the next step and launch a criminal investigation.
“The president has every right to be furious, but he shouldn’t stop there,” wrote Goodwin. “Situation Room meetings are classified, and the mere possibility that details of conversations, including those about the goals and strategy of the Iran war, were leaked demands a criminal probe.”
As previously reported, ahead of the June 23 release of Haberman and Swan’s “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” Axios cited White House aides voicing concern, “We’re afraid some of our most sensitive conversations were being recorded, and we have no idea which ones.”
White House aides fear Haberman obtained recordings of ‘sensitive’ Situation Room meetings for new Trump book https://t.co/EAaHcjlrXj
— BPR (@BIZPACReview) June 15, 2026
“We hear President Trump is furious about the blow-by-blow accounts,” the sources added as three particular meetings were focused on by the authors. These include a July 2025 meeting without the president where Vice President J.D. Vance was reported as saying, “This is a huge problem,” regarding the Epstein files.
Another allegation cited then-FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino shouting at then-Attorney General Pam Bondi regarding comments on files pertaining to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, “You f*cked this thing up from the start. The way you’ve been talking about this — that dumb f*cking charade with the Epstein files, the ‘They’re on my desk’ nonsense, all the promises to the folks out there.”
By Goodwin’s estimation, action should have been taken months ago, as he wrote, “When the Times published details in April of two February meetings about the run-up to the Iran attack, that was the moment when alarm bells should have been ringing and was the time to find the leaker.”
“But once the book is published, it will be too late to put the genie back in the bottle,” argued the columnist. “If the White House tries to take action, then sales will skyrocket as a thumb-in-the-eye to Trump. Besides, as Axios noted, ‘None of the reporting has been disputed’ by anyone in the White House. The dereliction is stunning.”
Addressing the impact that reporting on leaks have had on the world stage, Goodwin contended, “The article’s emphasis on [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s plan helped to fuel the emerging narrative on the left that Netanyahu had hoodwinked Trump into the war, and that America was doing Israel’s dirty work in attacking Iran,” a position that has impacted approval ratings and could subsequently impact races in the midterm election.
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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