President Obama was first briefed on the attempted Times Square bombing — which was discovered about 6:30 p.m. Saturday — at 10:50 that night, according to a White House official.
Administration officials, who today detailed the president’s involvement in the attempted attack over the past few days, said White House officials, National Security Staff and the NYPD were in touch before the president was notified.
Since Saturday night, Obama has been briefed frequently — at least 15 times — by his counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, often sending him off with questions to report back on, according to the official.
Obama was notified of Faisal Shahzad’s arrest at 12:05 a.m. today, about half an hour after he was apprehended, the administration official said. He asked for more information from Brennan, who updated him again twice between 7 and 8 a.m. this morning.
The official said first inter-agency meeting on the attempted bombing was held at 3 p.m. Sunday. Two more were held Monday in the Situation Room.
At 3:30 this afternoon, the official said, the president convened his weekly counterterrorism and homeland security meeting in the Situation Room with top advisers and officials, including Brennan,
Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, National Security Advisor Gen. James Jones, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen, Attorney General Eric Holder, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Deputy National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, Director of Central Intelligence Leon Panetta, National Security Agency Director Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, and Deputy FBI Director John Pistole, Director of Intelligence Staff for the DNI Lt. Gen. John Kimmons and Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Michael Leiter.
