Lawmakers demand investigation into group chat on Trump administration's war plans
Washington — A number of lawmakers expressed outrage Monday after the editor of The Atlantic reported that he was accidentally included in a group chat involving top Trump administration officials about the United States' highly sensitive war plans in Yemen.
Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle criticized the security breach, though Democrats took a harsher stance about how it should be addressed, with many demanding an immediate investigation. It is likely to become a topic of questioning as leaders of U.S. intelligence agencies appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday to testify about global security threats facing the country.
Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said the breach represents "one of the most egregious failures of operational security and common sense" he has ever seen.
"Military operations need to be handled with utmost discretion, using approved, secure lines of communication, because American lives are on the line. The carelessness shown by President Trump's cabinet is stunning and dangerous. I will be seeking answers from the Administration immediately," Reed's statement said.
Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the Republican chair of the Armed Services Committee, said, "It's definitely a concern, and it appears that mistakes were made."
"There are likely to be classified briefings about this soon," Wicker said, adding that his committee will "absolutely" look into it.
In a piece published Monday, Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic's editor in chief, recounted how he says he was inadvertently added to a group chat that included national security adviser Mike Waltz, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance and others on the encrypted messaging app Signal earlier this month. In the chat, Hegseth detailed the plans to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen shortly before the strikes took place, and other top officials weighed in, according to Goldberg.
The Atlantic said it did not publish all of the messages because some of the details were too sensitive.
The National Security Council acknowledged in a statement to CBS News that the group chat Goldberg reported "appears to be authentic."
"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," a National Security Council spokesman said. "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 service members or our national security."
Hegseth said Monday evening that "nobody was texting war plans," and he slammed Goldberg as "a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist" who "peddles hoaxes."
Asked about the report, President Trump said, "I don't know anything about it. I'm not a big fan of The Atlantic. It's going out of business. It's not much of a magazine." White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, "President Trump continues to have the utmost confidence in his national security team, including National Security Advisor Mike Waltz."
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said on the Senate floor, "This debacle requires a full investigation into how this happened, damage it created, and how we can avoid it in the future. If our nation's military secrets are being peddled around over unsecure text chains, we need to know that at once. We need to put a stop to it immediately."
He added, "When Pete Hegseth came before the Senate as a nominee, Democrats warned that something like this might happen. These people are clearly not up for the job. We warned confirming them was dangerous, that they'd behave recklessly. Unfortunately, we were right."
Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada, who serves on the Armed Services Committee and Foreign Relations Committee, slammed the incident as "a dangerous level of incompetence" and "an inexcusable failure." Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware, called it "a shocking breach" and urged a "prompt and thorough investigation" into the matter.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told CBS News that there should "absolutely" be a congressional investigation "so that we can understand what happened, why did it happen, and how do we prevent this type of national security breach from ever happening again."
"This is reckless, irresponsible, and dangerous," the New York Democrat said. "Who are some of these people that Donald Trump has put into the most sensitive national security positions in America? We were promised that Donald Trump was going to hire the very best. It's all phony."
House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Adam Smith called the incident "deeply troubling." "You're discussing war plans over the signal app. I mean, that's just unimaginable. There are secure lines of communication to do this, and anybody with just a rudimentary understanding of how national security works knows this. but apparently, Secretary Hegseth and Mike Waltz and the gang don't know," he said.
House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Jim Himes raised concern that the phones could have been vulnerable to hacking. "Let's assume that the people on the Signal chat were probably the top targets for some of our global enemies. It is by the grace of God that one of those enemies didn't alert the Houthis in advance so that they could reconfigure their anti aircraft assets, and had they done that, we would be looking at dead pilots right now. That's how serious what this administration did is."
Rep. Betty McCollum, a Democrat from Minnesota, raised the question of whether the officials violated the Espionage Act.
Republican Reps. Don Bacon of Nebraska and Mike Lawler of New York criticized the use of an encrypted messaging app to discuss the war plans.
"This can get our troops killed. Secure phones are mandatory for these kinds of communications. Russia and China are definitely monitoring their unclassified phones hoping they share info like this," Bacon said.
"Classified information should not be transmitted on unsecured channels — and certainly not to those without security clearances, including reporters. Period," Lawler wrote. "Safeguards must be put in place to ensure this never happens again."
House Speaker Mike Johnson, however, offered a defense of the conduct and said the reporting showed "top level officials doing their job, doing it well, and executing on a plan with precision."
"That mission was a success. No one was jeopardized because of it. We're grateful for that, but they will certainly, I'm sure, make sure that that doesn't happen again," the Louisiana Republican told reporters.
Johnson added that he didn't think Waltz, who apparently started the group chat and included the journalist, according to Goldberg's report, should be disciplined.
