The D Brief: More Yemen-chat details released; Troops patrolling border; Ukraine ceasefire broadened; Army’s gear overhaul; And a bit more.

After a day of repeated denials in sworn testimony, top White House intelligence officials are back on Capitol Hill for a hearing on worldwide threats before House lawmakers on the intelligence committee. CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard return for another round of questioning, joined by FBI Director Kash Patel. 

At a Tuesday hearing, Ratliffe and Gabbard assured senators that no classified information was posted as Trump's top national-security advisors discussed mid-March airstrikes in Yemen using a vulnerable commercial app. 

Rewind: The editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, was somehow added to the group chat, and after several days of consideration, he wrote about the extraordinary experience on Monday—though he was careful not to reveal any apparently classified information shared by the principals in the unsecured group chat. 

“There was no classified material that was shared in that Signal chat,” Gabbard told ranking Senate Intelligence Committee member Mark Warner, D-Va. When pressed more specifically about possible classified details from the chat, including any mention of specific weapons, Gabbard said she couldn’t recall such details or information about timing of the airstrikes. 

President Trump to reporters: “It wasn’t classified information,” an assertion echoed by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in a Tuesday statement to Goldberg and Harris: “As we have repeatedly stated, there was no classified information transmitted in the group chat.” And the alleged source of the sensitive information, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, assured reporters on Monday, “Nobody was texting war plans. And that’s all I have to say about that.”

New this morning: “Read for yourself: Here are the attack plans that Trump advisers shared on Signal,” The Atlantic’s veteran intelligence reporter Shane Harris wrote on social media, sharing a gift link to a new article laying out more of the chat messages. 

Why make it public? “The statements by Hegseth, Gabbard, Ratcliffe, and Trump—combined with the assertions made by numerous administration officials that we are lying about the content of the Signal texts—have led us to believe that people should see the texts in order to reach their own conclusions,” Goldberg and Harris wrote Wednesday morning, after checking once more with Trump administration officials. 

So what was in the group chat? Precise times and weapons, including: 

“1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package)”
“1345: ‘Trigger Based’ F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME – also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s)”

Hegseth sent that information more than half an hour before the first aircraft took off to strike their targets to a group chat that included a phone number unknown to him (Goldberg’s cellphone). “If this text had been received by someone hostile to American interests—or someone merely indiscreet, and with access to social media—the Houthis would have had time to prepare for what was meant to be a surprise attack on their strongholds. The consequences for American pilots could have been catastrophic,” Goldberg and Harris write. 

There is more. Read for yourself, here. 

What’s the mood on Capitol Hill? “Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said Tuesday that his committee will investigate the matter but also called on the Defense Department’s inspector general to launch a probe,” The Hill reports. And “the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is chaired by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), will also investigate the security lapse, according to senators on the panel.”

Several Democrats are calling for resignations. “At least four Senate Democrats — Mark Warner of Virginia, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Ron Wyden of Oregon — have called for Hegseth to resign following the Signal chat incident,” Politico reported Tuesday evening.  

Update: At least five senators are now calling for Hegseth’s resignation. Former NASA astronaut and Air Force veteran Mark Kelly of Arizona said Wednesday on social media, “We're lucky it didn't cost any servicemembers their lives, but for the safety of our military and our country, Secretary Hegseth needs to resign.”

“Pete Hegseth must resign or be fired immediately,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries posted on social media Tuesday, attaching a letter he sent to Trump over the matter. “His behavior shocks the conscience, risked American lives and likely violated the law,” he wrote in his letter. 

Worth noting: “When rank-and-file troops leak secrets, they often go to jail,” Task & Purpose reported Tuesday. 

Also: Personnel across the U.S. military received a memo (PDF) telling them not to use mobile apps because they’re not secure. The date of that memo? October 2023. (Hat tip to Jennifer Griffin of Fox for sharing that one.)

Commentary: “To hold no one accountable would undermine operational security and send a corrosive message to troops,” advises Alex Wagner, who served as assistant Air Force secretary for manpower and reserve affairs during the Biden administration, writing Tuesday in Defense One.

Read more: 

• “Signal Gate: The Criminal Law Precedents That Are Most Relevant,” via former Pentagon counsel Ryan Goodman, writing Tuesday in Just Security; 
• “‘Sloppy,’ ‘incompetent’ intelligence chiefs hammered for Signal chat,” Patrick Tucker reported Tuesday for Defense One;
• “Pete Hegseth Sued Over Signal Text Debacle,” Huffpost reported Tuesday; you can read over the suit from the public watchdog group American Oversight (PDF) here. 

Welcome to this Wednesday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 2010, North Korea torpedoed South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan, killing 46 sailors in the Yellow (or North) Sea.

Around the Defense Department

New: SecDef Hegseth has authorized mounted and dismounted patrols to hunt for migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border, defense officials at Northern Command announced Tuesday, describing the changes as “enhanced detection and monitoring.”

“Being mobile…adds an element of unpredictability for those considering illegal entry into the country,” a Pentagon spokesman said in a separate news release Tuesday. 

The military is also driving Customs and Border Protection personnel around inside their vehicles, which include Strykers from Fort Carson. “The authority to transport CBP personnel during patrols means law enforcement personnel will be on-hand or nearby to conduct any necessary law enforcement activity,” NORTHCOM said. 

Fine print: “Military personnel in a title 10 status may not directly participate in civilian law enforcement activities such as search, seizure, or arrest under the authorities granted by enhanced detection and monitoring,” NORTHCOM noted in its release. “Any law enforcement actions to apprehend individuals suspected of illegal entry must be conducted only by non-DoD law enforcement personal and National Guard personnel in a non-federalized status accompanying these patrols,” they added. Politico has a bit more. 

Additional reading: 

• “‘Nothing will be safe’ from Army’s kit overhaul,” Defense One’s Meghann Myers reported Tuesday from the AUSA Global Force symposium in Huntsville, Alabama;
• “The Army wants to put $1B into Transformation in Contact 2.0,” Myers reported separately from Huntsville; 
• “Families at Utah Air Force Base Lose Day Care Center as Pentagon Slashes Personnel Spending,” Military-dot-com reported Monday. 

Ukraine

Ukraine-Russia ceasefire deal now covers the Black Sea, negotiators say. “In separate joint statements from the White House — one between the United States and Russia, another between the U.S. and Ukraine — the two countries agreed to ‘ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes’ in the Black Sea, as well as to develop measures to implement and monitor the partial ceasefire,” reports the Washington Post. 

The deal’s extension emerged from U.S.-Russian-Ukrainian talks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. But the parties’ statements differ in important ways, suggesting that more needs to be worked out. More, here.

Related reading: 

• “The long, slow road to a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire” has a bit more from the BBC;
• “U.S. Agrees to Help Russia Boost Exports in Ukraine Talks,” via the Wall Street Journal, which suggests that more than just a ceasefire is on the table.

Analysis: In “The Hollow Men,” The Atlantic’s George Packer explores how Trump turned U.S. policy toward Russia and Ukraine on a dime.

And here’s a view from Russia, where analysts and observers tick off the ways Trump is reshaping things to Putin’s liking, via the Washington Post.

China

Beijing hates the Typhon missile launcher Biden sent to the Philippines. Will Trump keep it there? The Wall Street Journal has an explainer on the launcher, which can fire Tomahawks deep into Chinese territory and which “has emerged as an important litmus test amid concerns among American allies over the Trump administration’s willingness to come to their defense in a conflict with China.” What Hegseth says and does during his visit to the Philippines and Japan will be closely watched. More, here. 

Related reading:

• “Trade War Explodes Across World at Pace Not Seen in Decades,” threatening damage to economies, diplomacy, and alliances, the WSJ reports. 
• “Exclusive: Secretive Chinese network tries to lure fired federal workers, research shows,” writes Reuters in a team-up with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Trump 2.0

Lastly today: DOGE staffer “Big Balls” bragged about helping a cybercrime ring, records show. “The best-known member of Elon Musk's U.S. DOGE Service team of technologists once provided support to a cybercrime gang that bragged about trafficking in stolen data and cyberstalking an FBI agent, according to digital records reviewed by Reuters.” More, here.

Additional reading:

• “What Is the Secrecy Power Trump’s Aides Are Using to Stonewall a Federal Judge?” It’s the states secrets privilege, invoked on Monday night in highly unusual circumstances “to avoid complying with a judge’s demand for information about its transfer of migrants to a prison in El Salvador despite a court order,” the New York Times reports in an explainer;
• See also: “Majority of Americans [82%] believe presidents should obey the courts,” Reuters reported Tuesday off a new joint poll conducted with Ipsos.