intelligence

WASHINGTON —  President Trump was stunned to learn last week that US intelligence indicates new Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei may be gay — and that his father, the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, feared his suitability to rule the Islamic Republic for that reason, The Post can reveal.

Trump couldn’t contain his surprise and laughed aloud when he was briefed on the intel, according to sources.

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,” said one person familiar with the briefing.

The shocking claim was described to The Post by two intelligence community officials and a third person close to the White House.

All three sources say the implausible-sounding allegation is viewed as credible by US spy agencies, rather than false information intended to undermine Khamenei, 56, who was selected to replace his dead father as supreme leader on March 8.

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.

Mojtaba, who is believed to have been wounded in the same Feb. 28 airstrike that killed his father and other members of his family, has made “aggressive” sexual overtures to men caring for him, possibly while under the influence of heavy medication, one of The Post’s sources said.

US spy agencies do not have photographic evidence of Mojtaba Khamenei’s alleged sexual attraction to men, but the sources insisted the tip is solid, with one saying it was “derived from one of the most protected sources that the government has.”

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

Mojtaba’s purported sexual orientation had been whispered about inside Iran since at least the May 2024 helicopter crash that killed then-President Ebrahim Raisi, Ali Khamenei’s presumed favorite to be the next supreme leader, sources said.

Within the US government, “it’s been a pretty closely held piece of information,” one insider said.

Trump previously dismissed Mojtaba Khamenei as a “lightweight” and an “unacceptable” choice to run Iran. The new supreme leader is widely considered to be someone who would not bend to US demands to abandon the nuclear and ballistic missile programs that prompted Operation Epic Fury.

Some elements of Mojtaba Khamenei’s sex life have been reported before and may lend credence to the allegation.

A classified US diplomatic cable from 2008, published by WikiLeaks, described Mojtaba being treated in the UK for impotence, though that report did not identify what may have caused the condition. 

The State Department file says Mojtaba married “relatively late in life” — around age 30 — “reportedly due to an impotency problem treated and eventually resolved during three extended visits to the UK, at Wellington and Cromwell Hospitals, London.”

“Mojtaba was expected by his family to produce children quickly, but needed a fourth visit to the UK for medical treatment; after a stay of two months, his wife became pregnant,” the leaked file said.

Mojtaba’s wife, Zahra, and teenage son, Mohammad Bagher, reportedly died in the airstrike that killed his father. The new supreme leader has another son and a daughter.

The allegation of homosexuality was alluded to in a CBS News report on Sunday that said the elder Khamanei, who had ruled Iran since 1989, preferred a different successor in part because of 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 of The Post’s sources explained.

Homosexual conduct is illegal in Iran, though the government does allow surgical sex change operations, which some gay men reportedly are pressured into undergoing to avoid criminal penalties.

Sodomy is a capital offense in the nation of 93 million people, with some gay Iranians infamously hanged from construction cranes as a warning to others.

“In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals,” former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is believed to be an ally of the younger Khamenei, claimed in 2007.

One of The Post’s sources said that although it’s generally frowned upon to out people against their will, there’s a clear case of hypocrisy to justify doing so against Mojtaba.

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

Mojtaba Khamenei’s current whereabouts and the status of his recovery from the Feb. 28 airstrikes remain murky.

The White House did not provide comment for this article.