CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard are expected to face difficult questions from lawmakers this week about their apparent participation in a group chat with other senior U.S. officials where military strategy was discussed.
Ratcliffe and Gabbard will be among a handful of senior intelligence community officials to testify on Tuesday and Wednesday in front of the Senate and House intelligence committees. This is an annual hearing, though the new reporting about senior officials discussing whether the United States should carry out a military campaign against the Houthis is likely to come up.
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, set up a group chat on Signal with several senior U.S. officials, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Ratcliffe, Gabbard, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice President JD Vance, and several others, including Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, though they were unaware of his inclusion in the chat.
The officials debated the merits of launching a military campaign against the Houthis and ultimately celebrated the early results of the approved strikes. Goldberg claims he knew about the attack on the Houthis two hours before it happened because Hegseth shared operational details in the group chat.
“This administration is playing fast and loose with our nation’s most classified info, and it makes all Americans less safe,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), the top Democrat on the Senate Intel Committee, said. One of his staffers told the Washington Examiner he will likely address it during the hearing.
Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), the top Democrat on the House committee, also said he plans to ask about the group chat when Ratcliffe, Gabbard, and others testify.
“I am horrified by reports that our most senior national security officials, including the heads of multiple agencies, shared sensitive and almost certainly classified information via a commercial messaging application, including imminent war plans,” he added. “If true, these actions are a brazen violation of laws and regulations that exist to protect national security, including the safety of Americans serving in harm’s way.”
A committee spokesperson said it has “inquired with the [Office of the Director of National Intelligence] about the veracity of this article.” The spokesperson added, “We are gathering all the facts before determining additional oversight measures.”
The intel committees may not be the only bodies to discuss the leak.
House Foreign Affairs Committee minority leader Gregory Meeks (D-NY) called on his committee to immediately “hold a hearing on what might be the most astonishing breach of our national security in recent history, where top leadership from DOD, State, Treasury, the CIA and even the VP himself used a commercial messaging app – Signal – to communicate U.S. war plans, all the while unaware that a journalist was included in the group chat.”
Both the Pentagon and State Department declined to comment publicly on Monday, while the National Security Council confirmed the veracity of the chat.
“At this time, the message thread that was reported appears to be authentic, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” NSC spokesman Brian Hughes told the Washington Examiner. “The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to our servicemembers or our national security.”
