Key points
- The Democrats ask the high US officials to resign after a leaked group chat
- High national security officials testified to a Senate Intelligence Committee
- Security officials deny that the group chat contained war or classified material plans
The administration of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, has tried to minimize the consequences after a magazine journalist revealed that he had been inadvertently included in a group secret group of highly sensitive war plans, while the Democrats asked the senior officials to resign on the security incident.
The director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and the director of the CIA, John Ratcliffe, both in the Chat, testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee that no classified material was shared.
But Democratic senators expressed skepticism about that statement, noting that the journalist, the Atlantic chief editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth published operational details about pending strikes against Yemen, including information about the objectives, the weapons that the United States would be deploying and the sequence of attack. “
“It is difficult for me to believe that the objectives, time and weapons would not have classified,” said Senator Angus King, an independent who hunted with the Democrats, at the contentious audience that had several acute exchanges.
“I am of the opinion that there should be resignation, starting with the National Security Advisor and the Secretary of Defense,” said Democratic Senator Ron Wyden at the hearing, echoing the calls of several other legislators in his party.
Democratic senator Jon Ossoff seemed to frustrate after Ratcliffe replied “I don’t remember” a series of questions about the content of the signal chat.
“Director Ratcliffe, surely prepared for this audience today,” said Ossoff.
“You are part of a group of directors, senior levels of the United States government, and now a widely publicized violation of confidential information.”
“We will obtain the complete transcription of this chain, and its testimony will be carefully measured against its content,” he added.
Republican representative Don Bacon, a general withdrawn from the Air Force that is in the Armed Services Committee of the House of Representatives, told journalists that Hegseth needed to assume responsibility for the violation, which according to him put lives at risk. Fountain: AAPA / Aaron Schwartz
A former United States official told the Reuters news agency that the operational details for military actions are usually classified and known by only a few people in the Pentagon.
This high secret information usually remains in computers that use a separate network, said the official.
Earlier on Tuesday, Trump expressed his support for his national security advisor, Michael Waltz, who had brought Goldberg error to the signal discussion.
“Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and is a good man,” Trump told NBC News in a telephone interview.
The spokesman of the National Security Council, Brian Hughes, said Monday that the chat group seemed to be authentic.
It is not assumed that classified and confidential information is shared in commercial mobile phone applications, and unknown numbers should not be included, such as Goldberg’s.
The accounts that seemed to represent Vice President JD Vance, the Secretary of State of the United States, Marco Rubio, Ratcliffe, Gabbard, the secretary of the Treasury, Scott Besent, the chief of staff of the White House, Susie Wiles, and senior officials of the National Security Council met in the Chat group, Goldberg, wrote on Monday.
The White House Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, accused Goldberg of sensationalizing the story in an X publication and said that war plans were not discussed and that no classified material was sent to the thread.
Goldberg did not include the planning details that said Hegseth had posted in the chat, but called him “surprisingly reckless.”
It was not clear why officials chose to chat through the signal instead of safe government channels typically used for sensitive discussions.
