The North Korea SEAL Team Six operation is a 2018 mission reported by the New York Times in September 2025, which John Kiriakou called “a huge story” and treated as proof of two separate failures.[1]
What was attempted
At a moment when relations with Pyongyang were thawing and the administration hoped for a rapprochement, the United States wanted to know more about Kim’s thinking. The means chosen was a device that would allow American intelligence to eavesdrop on his communications — with the catch that it had to be planted on North Korean soil or it would not work. SEAL Team Six was assigned the task, planned it and rehearsed it.[2][3]
What happened
The weather was off, the water was very cold, and the landing did not go as planned. A North Korean boat then arrived. Nobody on the team spoke Korean, and they could not have heard what was being said in any case; concluding they had been noticed, they aborted, shot the people aboard and killed everyone on the boat. The dead turned out to be fishermen. The device was never planted.[3][4]
The context in which the story surfaced, as Kiriakou’s host summarised it, was that units of this kind often have botched operations and tend to publicise the successes while the failures go unreported.[4][5]
Why he says Trump is lying
Asked whether his administration had engaged with North Korea since, Trump answered: “I don’t know anything about it. No, I’d have to — well, I could look, but I know nothing about it. I don’t know anything about it. I’m hearing it now for the first time.”[1][6]
Kiriakou’s response is categorical. “First of all, liar, liar, pants on fire. We’re not going to send Seal Team Six into North Korea for a botched operation where they start shooting civilians, and the president didn’t know anything about it. That’s not how covert operations work.”[6]
The requirement he cites is documentary rather than customary: “Not only did the president have to know about it, he had to physically sign a paper called a finding authorizing special forces to do something like this. So he’s lying.”[6] The host adds that the risk profile — the team could have been captured or killed on North Korean soil, producing a massive international incident — is exactly what forces the sign-off to the top.[5]
The notification that never happened
The second failure Kiriakou identifies is toward Congress. “The law says that the White House has to inform at least the gang of four, if not the entire committee on both sides” — the gang of four being “the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and the House Intelligence Committee.” Where something is too sensitive for wider distribution, “you do the gang of four.”[7]
Neither happened. “They didn’t inform the committees either before or after the operation.” His verdict on the consequences: “I mean, heads should have rolled and nothing happened.”[7][8]