Senate to grill intel leaders following group text war plans leak
Mar 25, 2025
One day after The Atlantic reported that a reporter was accidentally included in a group text that contained attack plans on Yemen, several Trump administration members are slated to go before the Senate Intelligence Committee.T
he hearing was scheduled for Tuesday well before The Atlantic's report was published and was intended to be a discussion on "worldwide threats." However, it is expected that several attendees could be pressed on how secure U.S. intelligence is in the wake of the group text.In an article published Monday, Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, detailed how on March 11, he received a connection request on the encrypted app Signal from a user identified as Michael Waltz. In the days that followed, Goldberg said he was added to a group chat titled "Houthi PC small group." The group of about two dozen individuals included users who identified themselves as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Waltz, Goldberg writes. RELATED STORY | Trump officials inadvertently added journalist to text chain on war plansThe users discussed policy considerations regarding a strike on Iran-backed Houthi rebels. At one point, the account tied to Vance expressed hesitation about the strikes but ultimately stated he would "support the consensus of the team." Goldberg said a subsequent message from Hegseth "contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing."Among those also in the text chain were the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe. The two are slated to go before the committee on Tuesday.Sen. Mark Warner, the leading Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, reacted to Monday's report."This administration is playing fast and loose with our nations most classified info, and it makes all Americans less safe," he said. "Make no mistake: our allies are reading this war-plan-disclosure story too, and its making it less and less likely that theyll want to share sensitive intel with us."RELATED STORY | US re-designates Houthi rebels as a terrorist group ...read more read less