Trump bursts out laughing at surprise intel briefing on Iran's new leader: sources

President Donald Trump burst into laughter at an intelligence report about Iran's new supreme leader, according to sources.

Three sources familiar with the briefing told the New York Post that intelligence indicates Mojtaba Khamenei might be gay, and they said the U.S. president laughed out loud when he was told about that possibility, which they said spy agencies had deemed to be credible.

"Others in the room also found it 'hilarious' and joined the president’s reaction, while one senior intelligence official 'has not stopped laughing about it for days,'" The Post reported, according to one person familiar with the briefing.

"Two of the sources said the intelligence indicated that Mojtaba, who earned the nickname 'the power behind the robes' while serving as his aging dad’s gatekeeper, has had a long-term sexual relationship with his childhood tutor. The third source said the intelligence indicated the affair was with a person who formerly worked for the Khamenei family."

The late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the early hours of the Feb. 28 airstrikes, was concerned about his 56-year-old son's suitability to rule the Islamic Republic due to his rumored homosexuality, according to the intelligence, and a source said Mojtaba allegedly made "aggressive" overtures to men caring for him after he was wounded in the same strike.

"[The information was] derived from one of the most protected sources that the government has," one source said.

“The fact that this was elevated to the highest of high levels shows you there’s some confidence in this,” said a second source.

Mojtaba married “relatively late in life,” according to a State Department communication published in 2008 by WikiLeaks, and was allegedly treated in the UK for impotence.

A CBS News report on Sunday alluded to his possible homosexuality by saying the elder Khamanei preferred another successor due to unspecified “issues” in Mojtaba’s “personal life.”

“His father and others suspected he was gay and that was something that people were spreading to try to stop his ascension,” one source told the Post.

Mojtaba’s wife and teenage son reported were killed in the same airstrike that killed the supreme leader, but he has another son and a daughter.

“If there was ever a time where it was okay to out somebody, it would be when it’s a leader of a repressive Islamic theocracy that hangs gay people by cranes,” said one of the sources.