General busts Pentagon claim ex-official leaked Air Force One details

U.S. President Donald Trump boards the new, Qatari-gifted Air Force One at RAF Mildenhall, in Suffolk, Britain, July 8, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling hit back against the Pentagon after it attempted to scapegoat a former Biden administration official for leaking information about Air Force One.

The White House has been on a hunt for the individual who revealed information about President Donald Trump's Qatari gift plane to the New York Times, even subpoenaing the cell phones of family members of Times reporters.

The latest target from the administration is former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, who gave a comment to the Times about the plane that the administration now claims revealed classified information.

On Friday, Kendall had his security clearance pulled by the administration in retaliation.

“This action follows his unauthorized disclosure of classified information regarding Air Force One’s capabilities to a media outlet,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said on social media, reported the Military Times.

Hertling calls that absurd since the same information can be found simply by asking a search engine.

MS NOW host Alicia Menendez asked what exactly in Kendall's statement to the Times was an unauthorized disclosure.

"I don't see anything in there," said Hertling. "And when you talk about a typical Boeing 747 versus Air Force One, you can quickly find out what the differences are between the two aircraft. You can Google it. You can use ChatGPT. You can look at Wiki. You can watch a Netflix series on Air Force One that will tell you what it has versus a normal 747. It's not hard to do."

Hertling called Kendall a "good man" who "loves the Air Force" and is well-versed in aircraft since his pilots and crew "manned the doggone thing."

"So, he didn't say anything that would violate any kind of classification," Hertling added. "So, this appears to be another targeting of an individual who is speaking the truth about what the administration is doing. And that's really unfortunate."

Former FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann said that the Trump administration isn't merely at war with Iran, but it's also at war "with the truth."

"This sort of in-the-weeds legal issue here is that the courts traditionally have given the executive branch and the president specifically a wide range to issue both security clearance and to withdraw it," explained Weissmann. "I should mention that has happened to me, but also to many, many people much more exalted than me by this."

There's currently litigation around the administration's use of weaponizing security clearances. It questions at what point the president's authority over clearances "crosses the line."

"So, that is another example of the president going to the limit and then beyond, in many cases, of the law. And we're seeing it here, I think, in this case," Weissmann added.

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