WASHINGTON _ A senior White House official traveled to Syria over the summer to discuss the release of Austin Tice, an American journalist who went missing covering the war there in 2012, a Trump administration official confirmed to McClatchy.
Kash Patel, senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council, visited Damascus to meet with the head of Syria's intelligence agency. The meeting was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Marking the eighth anniversary of Tice's disappearance in August, Trump acknowledged that his administration had been in direct talks with Damascus over his whereabouts and potential release.
