President Donald Trump’s top intelligence officials claimed Tuesday that they did not share any classified materials in a group text about U.S. military plans that inadvertently included a journalist.
National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe both downplayed the mishap at a contentious Senate Intelligence Committee hearing a day after The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg reported that he had been added to a text thread about U.S. military plans to strike Houthi militias in Yemen.
The incident has raised questions about the Trump administration’s handling of classified information, as well as its use of the encrypted messaging application Signal and other electronic communications.
In testimony, Ratcliffe acknowledged he was on the text chain but said it was “lawful.” He said the Signal app was loaded on his work computer at the CIA when he started the job and claimed it was permitted as a communication tool for work purposes.
He did not address whether it was appropriate to share detailed military plans on Signal.
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Gabbard, asked by Democrats whether the timing and location of planned military strikes were shared on the chat, replied: “I can attest to the fact that there were not classified or intelligence equities that were included in that chat group at any time.”
Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of the magazine and a veteran national security journalist, reported that the thread on Signal appeared to include Ratcliffe and Gabbard, as well as Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The military plan discussed in the group chat “included precise information about weapons packages, targets and timing,” Goldberg wrote. He said he would refrain from reporting specific information shared in the chat that could damage national security.
In an exchange with Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., Gabbard said she did not remember discussion of specific weapons, targets or timing.
The intelligence officials both testified Tuesday that Hegseth was the “original classifying authority” on the chat. Goldberg reported that one message from a Signal account labeled “Pete Hegseth” included “operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.”
Ratcliffe and Gabbard, responding to a question from Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said they would cooperate with an “audit” looking into whether they had used Signal or another messaging platform to discuss classified information.
In a statement Monday, the National Security Council said it was “reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.”
Gabbard would not answer questions about whether she was using her personal phone or her government-issued phone, citing the fact that the Signal issue was “under review.”
FBI Director Kash Patel, one of the other witnesses Tuesday, said he was briefed on the incident Monday night and did not say whether he planned to open an investigation.
The hearing frequently grew heated. Democrats asked aggressive questions and accused the witnesses of jeopardizing national security.
Wyden said he believes Hegseth and Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Waltz, should resign. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said it was “mind-boggling to me that all these senior folks were on this line and nobody even bothered to check” whether a journalist or another unauthorized person was in the chat.
Waltz said in a Fox News interview Tuesday night that he takes “full responsibility” for organizing the text group, and that a staffer was not to blame for Goldberg’s inclusion.
“I take full responsibility. I built the — I built the group,” Waltz told host Laura Ingraham. “My job is to make sure everything’s coordinated.”
In his opening statement, Warner had blasted the Trump administration for what he characterized as a “cavalier attitude towards classified information,” describing it as “reckless” and “sloppy.”
“The Signal fiasco is not a one-off,” Warner said. “It is, unfortunately, a pattern we’re seeing too often repeated.”
“The unwillingness of the individuals on this panel who were on the chat to even apologize for acknowledging what a colossal screw-up this is speaks volumes,” he added.
Warner cited an earlier incident in January when the CIA, complying with a presidential executive order, sent an unclassified email to the Office of Personnel Management with the first names and initialized last names of recently hired employees at the spy agency.
Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., grilled Ratcliffe about whether Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, was in Moscow when the group chat conversation occurred.
“This sloppiness, this incompetence, this disrespect for our intelligence agencies and the personnel who work for him is entirely unacceptable. It’s an embarrassment,” Bennet said. He added: “You need to do better. You need to do better.”
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., the chairman of the committee, did not directly address the Signal text chain in his prepared opening remarks. Republican senators largely focused their questions on other issues, including drug cartels and China.
Trump, speaking to NBC News by phone earlier Tuesday, stood by Waltz. Goldberg reported that he was added to the Signal chat after he received a request from a user identified as Waltz.
“Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man,” Trump said.
Speaking from the White House in a lengthy back-and-forth with reporters Tuesday, Trump downplayed the events and said the chat contained “no classified information, as I understand it.”
“They were using an app, as I understand it, that a lot of people in government use, a lot of people in the media use,” he said.
Waltz, who was in the room for a meeting of ambassadors, defended himself amid repeated questions about when Trump learned of the chat and how. Waltz said they planned to look into how Goldberg got added to the chat and whether Signal is secure enough to use for high-level discussions.
“We are, we have our technical experts looking at it,” he said. “We have our legal teams looking at it. And of course, we’re going to keep everything as secure as possible.”
Trump said he did not want Waltz to be “hurt” by the breach and saw no need for him to apologize, even as he said aides would “probably” not use Signal any longer.
“If it was up to me, everybody would be sitting in a room together,” Trump said. “The room would have solid lead walls and a lead ceiling and a lead floor. But you know, life doesn’t always let you do that.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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