WASHINGTON: The Trump administration sought on Tuesday to contain the fallout after a magazine journalist disclosed he had been inadvertently included in a secret group discussion of highly sensitive war plans, while Democrats called on top officials to resign over the security incident.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe - both of whom were in the chat - testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee that no classified material was shared in the group chat on Signal, an encrypted commercial messaging app. But Democratic senators voiced skepticism about that claim, noting that the journalist, The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg, reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted operational details about pending strikes against Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis, “including information about targets, weapons the US would be deploying, and attack sequencing.”
“It’s hard for me to believe that targets and timing and weapons would not have been classified,” Senator Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said at the contentious hearing, which featured several sharp exchanges.
The extraordinary revelation on Monday triggered outrage and disbelief among national security experts and prompted Democrats - and some of Trump’s fellow Republicans - to call for an investigation of what they described as a major security breach.
“I am of the view that there ought to be resignations, starting with the national security adviser and the secretary of defense,” Democratic Senator Ron Wyden said at the hearing.
Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff appeared to grow frustrated after Ratcliffe answered “I don’t recall” to a series of questions about the content of the Signal chat.
“Director Ratcliffe, surely you prepared for this hearing today,” Ossoff said. “You are part of a group of principals, senior echelons of the US government, and now a widely publicized breach of sensitive information.”
“We will get the full transcript of this chain, and your testimony will be measured carefully against its content,” he added.
A former US official told Reuters that operational details for military actions are typically classified and known to only a few people at the Pentagon. Such top secret information is usually kept on computers that use a separate network, the official said.
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