At a Senate hearing on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT), two members of the Signal group – director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Central Intelligence Agency director John Ratcliffe – claimed no classified information was shared in the chat. However, it was not clear who determined none of the information was classified, or when.
At one point, Democratic Senator from Georgia Jon Ossoff asked Ratcliffe whether the incident was a “huge mistake”. Ratcliffe replied: “No.”
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA director John Ratcliffe were both in the Signal group chat.Credit: AP
Ratcliffe said Signal was installed on his CIA computer, as it was for most CIA officers, and the application was routinely used for general communications.
“It is permissible to use [Signal] provided that any decisions that are made are also reported through formal channels,” Ratcliffe said. The group chat in question was “entirely permissible and lawful and did not include classified information”, he said.
In his report for The Atlantic, Goldberg revealed he was added to the group chat by Waltz days before March 15 strikes in Yemen. The thread included Vice President J.D. Vance, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Gabbard, Ratcliffe and senior White House staffers.
As well as debate about whether the strikes should go ahead, Hegseth posted “information about targets, weapons the US would be deploying, and attack sequencing”, according to Goldberg’s account.
Asked how such information could be considered unclassified, Gabbard told the Senate hearing: “I defer to the Department of Defence and National Security Council on that question.”
Democrats said if the material was not classified, Gabbard and Ratcliffe should release it all. “You can’t have it both ways,” said Democratic senator Mark Warner of Virginia. “Share it with the committee … give it to the public today.”
Warner said the security lapse was “sloppy, careless, incompetent behaviour”, and “if this was the case of a military officer or an intelligence officer … they would be fired.” Democratic senator from Oregon Ron Wyden said Waltz and Hegseth needed to resign.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt doubled down on the administration’s position on Tuesday and stepped up attacks on Goldberg, whom she described as “well-known for his sensationalist spin”.
FBI director Kash Patel, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA director John Ratcliffe faced the Senate Intelligence Committee.Credit: Bloomberg
Leavitt said no “war plans” were discussed in the thread and no classified material was shared. “The White House is looking into how Goldberg’s number was inadvertently added to the thread,” she said.
Other senior administration figures in the group were unable to explain at the hearing how or why they didn’t realise an unknown person using the name “JG” was a member of the highly sensitive group chat.
Goldberg said he left the group shortly after the strikes, which would have generated an alert notifying other members someone had departed. But no one contacted him about his presence in the group.
Loading
Warner told the hearing: “It’s mind-boggling to me that all these senior folks were on this line, and nobody bothered to even check. Security hygiene 101: who are all the names?”
House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, one of the most senior Republicans in Washington, said the incident was “a mistake, and a serious one”, but also defended the people involved.
“The leaders on that group chat are extraordinary people, I know them all personally, they’re patriots, they’re doing a great job for the country, and that was a successful mission,” Johnson said.
