Former White House national security aide Sebastian Gorka hinted Tuesday that the U.S. government has taken covert action to interfere with North Korea’s missile launches, causing some of them to fail.
“Missile defense is a topic that, of course, came up with the government of South Korea,” Gorka told Fox News on Tuesday. “But, there’s many other options, Brian, as well, also, in the more covert side of things. You have seen a lot of missile tests fail. Most tests actually fail. Sometimes there may be reasons beyond just the incompetence of North Korea for those missile tests.”
Gorka was responding to a question from “Fox and Friends” host Brian Kilmeade, who asked Gorka about Trump’s options for responding to North Korea, as well as the possibility of deploying missile defense systems to South Korea and Japan.
Pyongyang test-launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile that flew over northern Japan early Tuesday morning local time and fell into the Pacific Ocean.
Previous reports have indicated that the Pentagon has successfully hacked into North Korea’s missile systems, interfering with test launches.
The New York Times reported in March that former President Barack Obama asked the Defense Department in 2014 to boost their cyber and electronic efforts to combat Pyongyang’s missile program.
Not long after Obama’s request, some missile tests from North Korea began to fail, with rockets exploding, moving off course or falling into the ocean.
It’s unclear whether Trump has decided to continue with those cyber efforts. Despite Gorka claiming “most tests fail,” data provided by the Nuclear Threat Initiative show that more missile tests succeed than fail.
Gorka worked as a national security aide to Trump until Friday, when he said he resigned from his post.
But the circumstances of his departure have been disputed by the White House, which suggested his departure wasn’t voluntary.
