'Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday that Russia knew before congressional leaders about the raid leading to the death of fugitive Islamic State Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi because the administration wanted "no risk" that the operation would be compromised.
"There were only a handful of us that were dialed into this operation, myself and a handful of others," Pompeo told Fox News' "Fox and Friends." " We wanted to take no risk anyone would ever compromise the operation. So we were very focused on information security. Second, we wanted to make sure we were doing it right. We were focused on delivering the outcome we got. That is what the American people should be focused on."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Sunday slammed the administration for informing Russia first after Trump said he was worried about congressional leaks.
Pompeo said on the night of the attack, he reached out to his Russian counterpart to make it clear "our expectations with respect to us being able to get our forces where we needed to get them, when we needed to get them, to get them out safely," said Pompeo.
Meanwhile, there was "nothing easy" about the raid, Pompeo said.
"We had really good intelligence," he said. "The intelligence teams were working on this for an awfully long time, to deliver an intelligence picture would enable them to go to know what they would find when they got there."
Pompeo was in Kansas Saturday night as the military mission happened, not at the White House situation room, but said he kept close touch and the State Department was "fully engaged" in the "remarkable turn of events" that will continue to have a real impact across the world.
He also slammed the Washington Post for a headline that initially called Baghdadi an "austere religious scholar."
"I think it is appalling, sick,' said Pompeo. "The fact that a national newspaper would describe this person as an austere scholar in the headline in the immediate aftermath of the achievements of President Trump and the administration is truly appalling."