Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., gave an opening statement Tuesday in a hearing on worldwide threats, a day after the revelation that senior Trump administration officials discussed sensitive U.S. military attack plans in a Signal app group chat and inadvertently included a journalist.
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“Two of our witnesses here today were members of a group chat that discussed highly sensitive and likely classified information that supposedly even included weapons packages, targets and timing and included the name of an active CIA agent,” Warner said.
“It’s also just mind boggling to me that all these senior folks who are on this line and nobody bothered to even check. Security hygiene 101. Who are all the names? Who are they? Well, it apparently included a journalist.”
The text chain, in which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth discussed plans to strike Houthi rebels in Yemen, also included Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who were scheduled to testify in the hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee. They will be joined by FBI Director Kash Patel, NSA Director Timothy Haugh and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Jeffrey Kruse. In the time since the group chat was reported, national security experts and lawmakers have expressed concern about the major lapse in security.
When asked by reporters about the communications around the plans late Monday, Hegseth said “nobody was texting war plans.”
