U.S. intelligence officials, including Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, were questioned at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about the fallout from an inadvertent leak of sensitive information. The leak occurred during a group chat on the encrypted messaging app Signal, in which military secrets were unintentionally shared with a journalist. The incident took place just hours before U.S. military operations were carried out in Yemen.
The chat group included other top officials, such as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz. At the time of the Senate hearing, the Senators did not have the full transcript of the chat, leaving them in a challenging position to scrutinize the administration's handling of classified information.
During the hearings, Gabbard and Ratcliffe maintained that none of the information shared during the chat was classified. This assertion was later echoed by the White House. However, the full contents of the chat were subsequently published by The Atlantic, leading to further questioning in another hearing by the House.
In the House hearing, intelligence officials, including Gabbard and Ratcliffe, were pressed about the security lapse. Some legislators also called for Hegseth's resignation.
>"A lot of this suggests sort of a lack of sobriety," said Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, referring to Hegseth's use of emojis in the chat.
Hegseth defended himself to reporters, stating,
>"Nobody’s texting war plans, and that’s all I have to say."
Democratic legislators expressed concern about the use of a commercial messaging platform to discuss sensitive military plans. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., appeared frustrated as he tried to get Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, to admit the details Hegseth shared were classified.
>"This is classified information," Krishnamoorthi interjected, insisting on a full investigation into the use of Signal chats within the administration.
Another legislator, Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., presented printouts of Hegseth's messages during the hearing to illustrate his point. He argued that the information discussed could have posed risks to U.S. military personnel if it had fallen into the wrong hands.
>"Nobody is willing to come to us and say, ‘This was wrong, this was a breach of security, and we won’t do it again,'" Crow said.
Gabbard acknowledged the incident during her testimony, calling it a "mistake" to include Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg in the text chain. She further stated that the National Security Council was conducting a review of the incident and insisted that no classified information had been shared.
>"The national security adviser has taken full responsibility for this. And the National Security Council is conducting an in-depth review, along with technical experts working to determine how this reporter was inadvertently added to this chat," said Gabbard.
The incident has sparked a debate about the use of encrypted chat apps like Signal for coordination among intelligence services. Despite the controversy, Gabbard and Ratcliffe maintained that no top secrets were divulged in the mishandled texts. The fallout from the Signal leak continues to be a subject of discussion in both the Senate and the House.