‘Sloppy,’ ‘incompetent’ intelligence chiefs hammered for Signal chat
At Senate hearing, Gabbard, Ratcliffe struggled to recall details of Yemen-strike chat shared with journalist.
The fact that officials from the White House, intelligence community, and the Pentagon were using Signal to discuss highly sensitive military activities and relations with allies, possibly on their personal devices, while traveling abroad, including to Russia, and not checking who else might have been on the in the group chat exuded “sloppiness…incompetence, disrespect,” Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., said during the hearing.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the vice chair of the committee, described the entire chat episode as “sloppy,” but also dangerous.
“If the Houthis had this information they could have repositioned their defensive systems…American lives could have been lost.”
(The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg did not reveal operational details in his article, but merely alluded to them.) The Senate Democrats’ fiery tone stood in stark contrast to the silence of Republican lawmakers who made no effort to defend, explain, or justify the affair.
ODNI head Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe struggled to recall key details of the March 13-14 discussions, despite yesterday’s publication of a partial transcript, which was confirmed as authentic by a National Security Council spokesman. Gabbard initially refused to confirm that she was even included in the chats, citing a current National Security Council review. Minutes later, she acknowledged that she did remember certain details of the discussion—implicitly acknowledging her participation—but not other details. She also claimed that classified material had not been exposed, contrary to Goldberg’s reporting that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had posted “operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.”
Beside her, Ratcliffe confirmed that he was, indeed, the John Ratcliffe in the chat record. But he also failed to recall key details of the discussion. He claimed not to know whether classified information had been exposed. But he asserted that classified CIA data had not. (In his article, Goldberg reported that Ratcliffe sent a message that “contained information that might be interpreted as related to actual and current intelligence operations.”)
When Warner disputed Gabbard’s claim that the discussion contained no classified information, she said a sitting U.S. president can declassify information.
But one government counter-intelligence official who spoke to Defense One on background said that, if the Atlantic reporting is accurate, the chat’s participants likely broke one law that governs the sharing of information about military operations and another that governs the sharing of intelligence.
Whose phones?
Among lawmakers’ top concerns: Did the chat occur on personal devices or government-issued phones, and where were the participants at the time? Gabbard indicated that she had been traveling abroad during the discussion, but refused to say what kind of device she was using, citing the NSC review.
Another participant in the text discussion was Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who was then in Moscow for meetings with Russian officials. Bennet asked Ratcliffe whether he was aware of that, and the CIA director answered that he was not.
Why does the location matter if the chat group was using an end-to-end encrypted messaging app? And Signal is widely considered among the best. It’s commonly used for communications in the civilian world and even between U.S. and partner militaries, especially in Ukraine. Ratcliffe testified today that Signal was allowed for use at the CIA, but only alongside more secure systems, not in their place. One person intimately familiar with Signal’s messaging and security features pointed out that the app’s encryption has never been broken, but it only secures messages in transit from one endpoint to another. A phone loaded with spyware—say, the Israeli-developed Pegasus, which is increasingly popular among autocratic regimes—could reveal those messages on command. “It’s as if you have a friend sitting next to you, watching you as you do everything on your phone,” said the individual.
The person added, “It doesn't matter whether you're using Signal or military-grade special [devices], if you add the wrong person to the chat, no one can help you.”
The use of government SIPRnet and JWICS networks, whose apps can be downloaded only to government phones, would have prevented the unintended inclusion of people without proper authorities to access such information. The use of Signal suggests that the participants were using personal devices.
If so, that would be a violation of the law, the counterintelligence official said.
“There is no official use of Signal. All government communications require use of government operated systems,” they said, citing the Electronic Records Act, which requires government communications to be retained. There is no exception for Defense Department or military use, they said.
Today’s hearing did not feature Hegseth or National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who reportedly invited Goldberg into the chat.
Waltz said today at the White House that he did not know and had never met Goldberg.
“President Trump took out the head missile leader, knocked out missiles, knocked out headquarters, knocked out the communication sites,” he said. “This journalist wants the world talking about more hoaxes…rather than the freedom that you're enabling.” ]]>
