NYT report: In 2019, President Trump ordered Navy SEAL mission into North Korea; mission failed, left unarmed North Koreans dead

essentialsaltes · Sep 5, 2025

A 2019 mission in North Korea, which intended to have Navy SEALs plant an electronic device to intercept communications of the country’s leader Kim Jong Un, resulted in an unsuccessful operation that left unarmed North Koreans dead, according to a report from the New York Times on Friday.

The mission, which took place during President Donald Trump’s first term, required the president’s direct approval, the Times reports, and came amid high-level nuclear talks between the US and North Korea.

The Times reports when a North Korean boat, which evidence later suggested were two or three North Korean civilians diving for shellfish, approached in the water during the operation, the SEALs opened fire and killed them. The report also states the Trump administration did not notify key members of Congress.

Nithavela · Sep 5, 2025

GoldenBoy89 · Sep 5, 2025

It’s no wonder the love letters have stopped coming.

essentialsaltes · Sep 6, 2025

Trump says he doesn't know 'anything' about reported violent, failed SEAL Team 6 mission in North Korea

The Pentagon and U.S. Special Operations Command declined to comment to ABC News about The New York Times report.

"I don't know anything about it. I'm hearing it now for the first time," he responded.

durangodawood · Sep 6, 2025

Youre innocently diving for shellfish or whatever.... and then Seal Team 6 emerges from the inky blackness and shoots you dead.

Life in N Korea sounds hard.

wing2000 · Sep 6, 2025

The first Trump administration never disclosed the operation to Congress....either before or after. The NYT's notes:

"President Barack Obama curtailed Special Operations missions late in his second term and increased oversight, reserving complex commando raids for extraordinary situations like hostage rescues.

The first Trump administration reversed many of those restrictions and cut the amount of high-level deliberation for sensitive missions. A few days after taking office in 2017, Mr. Trump skipped over much of the established deliberative process to greenlight a Team 6 raid on a village in Yemen. That mission left 30 villagers and a SEAL dead and destroyed a $75 million aircraft.

When President Joseph R. Biden Jr. succeeded Mr. Trump, the gravity of the North Korea mission attracted renewed scrutiny. Mr. Biden’s defense secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III, ordered an independent investigation, conducted by the lieutenant general in charge of the Army inspector general’s office.

In 2021, the Biden administration briefed key members of Congress on the findings, a former government official said.

Those findings remain classified."

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/us/navy-seal-north-korea-trump-2019.html?searchResultPosition=6

And now we have the 2nd Trump term. Given Trump's record of not disclosing military operations to Congress - as every other modern day president has done, Congress is today blind as to operations may be already underway.

Richard T · Sep 15, 2025

wing2000 said:
The first Trump administration never disclosed the operation to Congress....either before or after. The NYT's notes:

"President Barack Obama curtailed Special Operations missions late in his second term and increased oversight, reserving complex commando raids for extraordinary situations like hostage rescues.

The first Trump administration reversed many of those restrictions and cut the amount of high-level deliberation for sensitive missions. A few days after taking office in 2017, Mr. Trump skipped over much of the established deliberative process to greenlight a Team 6 raid on a village in Yemen. That mission left 30 villagers and a SEAL dead and destroyed a $75 million aircraft.

When President Joseph R. Biden Jr. succeeded Mr. Trump, the gravity of the North Korea mission attracted renewed scrutiny. Mr. Biden’s defense secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III, ordered an independent investigation, conducted by the lieutenant general in charge of the Army inspector general’s office.

In 2021, the Biden administration briefed key members of Congress on the findings, a former government official said.

Those findings remain classified."

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/us/navy-seal-north-korea-trump-2019.html?searchResultPosition=6

And now we have the 2nd Trump term. Given Trump's record of not disclosing military operations to Congress - as every other modern day president has done, Congress is today blind as to operations may be already underway.

Reminds of the movie Clear and Present Danger, lots of things happening but no one taking responsibility. I wonder what the USA would do if a Seal team was captured after killing civilians? I doubt we would get them back without force.
I do remember too the secret raid that Carter used to try and get hostages out of Iran. A helicopter went down getting into position and the mission was scrubbed. It made the news fairly quickly. How things have changed.

wing2000 · Sep 15, 2025

Richard T said:
Reminds of the movie Clear and Present Danger, lots of things happening but no one taking responsibility. I wonder what the USA would do if a Seal team was captured after killing civilians? I doubt we would get them back without force.

Deny they are U.S. forces.

Yarddog · Sep 15, 2025

durangodawood said:
Youre innocently diving for shellfish or whatever.... and then Seal Team 6 emerges from the inky blackness and shoots you dead.

Life in N Korea sounds hard.

Trump will claim they were drug runners from Venezuela.

Valletta · Thursday at 3:12 PM

Richard T said:
Reminds of the movie Clear and Present Danger, lots of things happening but no one taking responsibility. I wonder what the USA would do if a Seal team was captured after killing civilians? I doubt we would get them back without force.
I do remember too the secret raid that Carter used to try and get hostages out of Iran. A helicopter went down getting into position and the mission was scrubbed. It made the news fairly quickly. How things have changed.

There have been many secret operations into foreign countries under numerous administrations that do not immediately make the news. In fact there was a whole secret war in Laos through Democrat and Republican administrations. While Nixon announced all of the POWs were on their way home in early 1973, at that time the Pathet Lao did not release even one American POW. In early 1973 the U.S. was still flying secret missions into Laos and lost more men there. Additionally there was a secret mission into Laos in 1981. It may take decades for classified missions to be revealed, on occasion officials think it is best to reveal the missions right away. As to Carter and the hostage rescue attempt, Carter took a hit politically when it came out the U.S. had refused Israeli help for advice on the mission, Israel used special air filters on desert helicopters to keep out the sand.

iluvatar5150 · Thursday at 3:28 PM

durangodawood said:
Youre innocently diving for shellfish or whatever.... and then Seal Team 6 emerges from the inky blackness and shoots you dead.

Life in N Korea sounds hard.

Dude was probably sitting there, figuring he's only gotta watch out for his own government. NK is probably the safest place on earth when it comes to American military adventurism.

Richard T · Thursday at 7:08 PM

Valletta said:
There have been many secret operations into foreign countries under numerous administrations that do not immediately make the news. In fact there was a whole secret war in Laos through Democrat and Republican administrations. While Nixon announced all of the POWs were on their way home in early 1973, at that time the Pathet Lao did not release even one American POW. In early 1973 the U.S. was still flying secret missions into Laos and lost more men there. Additionally there was a secret mission into Laos in 1981. It may take decades for classified missions to be revealed, on occasion officials think it is best to reveal the missions right away. As to Carter and the hostage rescue attempt, Carter took a hit politically when it came out the U.S. had refused Israeli help for advice on the mission, Israel used special air filters on desert helicopters to keep out the sand.

Yes, you are absolutely right. I am ok with the missions but when things go south on them, killing civilians is something I hope we try to avoid. I don't know the risks, but maybe just taking their radio and disabling their engines would have been a better alternative? Maybe have some korean call it in as a tip a day later? Of course no one knows all the details, so i can't judge what options there may or may not have been. Keeping it secret too as long as possible does seem to be the best policy as long as the mission is on the up and up on the USA side.

Desk trauma · Thursday at 7:12 PM

iluvatar5150 said:
Dude was probably sitting there, figuring he's only gotta watch out for his own government. NK is probably the safest place on earth when it comes to American military adventurism.

Israel would be safest.

iluvatar5150 · Thursday at 7:53 PM

Desk trauma said:
Israel would be safest.

fair

Pommer · Thursday at 11:28 PM

Richard T said:
Yes, you are absolutely right. I am ok with the missions but when things go south on them, killing civilians is something I hope we try to avoid. I don't know the risks, but maybe just taking their radio and disabling their engines would have been a better alternative? Maybe have some korean call it in as a tip a day later? Of course no one knows all the details, so i can't judge what options there may or may not have been. Keeping it secret too as long as possible does seem to be the best policy as long as the mission is on the up and up on the USA side.

I dunno, highly training a team of dedicated professional soldiers to do operations but without killing anyone (should things not go according to plan), seems wildly optimistic.

Richard T · Saturday at 10:33 PM

Pommer said:
I dunno, highly training a team of dedicated professional soldiers to do operations but without killing anyone (should things not go according to plan), seems wildly optimistic.

Your probably right. I wonder though why they did not have radar or something so that they would not stumble on a boat in the first place?

RocksInMyHead · 2025-10-07T08:41:33-0500

Richard T said:
Your probably right. I wonder though why they did not have radar or something so that they would not stumble on a boat in the first place?

While the details of the mission aren't revealed in the article, my understanding is that, for a mission like this, they would likely be dropped off several miles offshore and use either a small inflatable boat or "sea scooters" to approach the coastline over the course of several hours, so they probably wouldn't have any sort of radar coverage past their dropoff point.

iluvatar5150 · 2025-10-07T09:57:04-0500

RocksInMyHead said:
While the details of the mission aren't revealed in the article, my understanding is that, for a mission like this, they would likely be dropped off several miles offshore and use either a small inflatable boat or "sea scooters" to approach the coastline over the course of several hours, so they probably wouldn't have any sort of radar coverage past their dropoff point.

They used a submarine, which then launched two smaller submarines.

ThatRobGuy · 2025-10-07T11:12:02-0500

I can sympathize with any President (post-2010) with regards to be hesitant to disclose sensitive missions to congress.

The quality of congressional members has, shall we say, declined a bit.

It's the reason why Obama didn't notify congress about the operation to kill Bin Laden until after it was successful. (and I'm guessing there were probably several classified Special Ops missions under both Bush 2 and Obama trying to accomplish that, whose details never saw the light of day)

There's too many members of congress who can't be trusted to keep secrets anymore, especially not in age of social media and "headline-hungry" journalists looking to "be the first to report".

That's all you need is for one of our teams being 5 minutes from the drop point, and then details are leaked via "anonymous sources" and shows up on a Twitter feed.

AI search disclosure (courtesy of Microsoft CoPilot)

Military Special Operations (DoD/JSOC)

Examples: Navy SEAL raids, Delta Force operations, drone strikes in counterterrorism.
Congressional notification rules:

For short, tactical missions, the President is not legally required to notify Congress either before or after the mission.

Notification typically happens retroactively only if:

There are U.S. casualties.

There’s significant political/diplomatic fallout.

Oversight committees request briefings.

Example: The 2011 bin Laden raid was not pre-approved by Congress. Congress was briefed afterward by the President and intelligence officials, but that was a courtesy, not a strict legal requirement.

Military special ops: Congress can be notified after the fact only if politically necessary or requested. Not always required by law.
Covert intelligence missions: Congress may be notified, but sometimes notification can be delayed if doing so may jeopardize follow up missions.
Large-scale deployments/hostilities: Notification is legally required within 48 hours.

NYT report: In 2019, President Trump ordered Navy SEAL mission into North Korea; mission failed, left unarmed North Koreans dead

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Trump says he doesn't know 'anything' about reported violent, failed SEAL Team 6 mission in North Korea​

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