WASHINGTON — Top members of the intelligence community say they would be open to an audit of a leaked group chat in which Trump administration officials inadvertently added a journalist to a conversation coordinating airstrikes in Yemen.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard faced intense questioning by Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday as senators pressed them on whether the group chat posed a national security risk. The pair denied any wrongdoing, rejecting claims that sensitive information related to war plans were shared in the conversation.
“There was no classified material that was shared in that Signal chat,” Gabbard told the committee, referring to the encrypted messaging platform that was used.
The hearing comes one day after it was revealed The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was inadvertently added to a group chat coordinating details for airstrikes targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels on March 15. In his reporting, Goldberg said the chat included “operational details … including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.”
The revelation prompted outrage from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, sending the Trump administration into clean-up mode this week to downplay the severity.
The hearing on Tuesday was previously scheduled to focus on global threats facing the United States, but several Democratic senators changed their prepared remarks at the last minute to focus on the group chat.
“We stunningly learned that senior members of this administration and according to reports, two of our witnesses here today were members of a group chat that discussed highly sensitive and likely classified information that supposedly even included weapons packages, targets and timing, and included the name of an active CIA agent,” Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., said in his opening statement.
“Putting aside for a moment that classified information should never be discussed over an unclassified system. It’s also just mind boggling to me that all these senior folks were on this line and nobody bothered to even check security,” he added. “It’s security hygiene 101.”
Trump administration says war plans were not discussed
Throughout the hearing, both Gabbard and Ratcliffe maintained that no classified information was shared in the group chat nor was classified material sent to the thread.
That response echoes the official response from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday, who accused Goldberg of adding “sensationalist spin” when he revealed he was accidentally added to the group chat.
“As the National Security Council stated, the White House is looking into how Goldberg’s number was inadvertently added to the thread,” Leavitt said in a post on X. “Thanks to the strong and decisive leadership of President (Donald) Trump, and everyone in the group, the Houthi strikes were successful and effective. Terrorists were killed and that’s what matters most to President Trump.”
That line of defense prompted pushback from Democratic senators, who pressed the intelligence community officials to approve an audit of the group chat to determine whether classified information was shared. Gabbard and Ratcliffe both said they would comply with such a review.
Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, further pressed Gabbard on those claims, arguing the White House should publish the full text conversation if classified information was not shared. The Trump administration has so far declined to do so.
Gabbard said there was discussion “around targets in general,” although she said specific details about airstrikes against the Houthis was not discussed. Instead, Gabbard described the thread “as a conversation reflecting national security leaders and the vice president around the president’s objectives.”
Ratcliffe later acknowledged that discussions of possible military targets should not be held on unclassified systems, noting “pre-decisional strike deliberation should be conducted through classified channels.”
Republicans defend use of nonsecure messaging system
Aside from Goldberg being added to the group conversation, several lawmakers on the Intelligence and Armed Services committees in Congress have aired concerns with the use of Signal, an encrypted group chat system, to discuss highly sensitive decisions.
Ratcliffe defended the usage, arguing the system has been deemed permissible by the White House and was “used permissibly” by those included in the thread.
Ratcliffe told the committee that national security adviser Mike Waltz requested the Signal chat be used for first steps in coordination, but it was not intended to be a “substitute for classified communications.”
“My communications, to be clear, in a Signal message group were entirely permissible and lawful and did not include classified information,” Ratcliffe said.
The use of Signal has raised eyebrows among several in GOP circles, particularly Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee.
“The fact that classified information was put on an unclassified system, I think the secretary of defense has to answer to that,” Bacon said on Tuesday.
Bacon pushed back on the White House’s claims that war plans were not discussed on the text thread, calling it “baloney.”
“They ought to just be honest and own up to it,” he said.