The second day in a row of the two highest officials in the administration of President Donald Trump was grilled at Capitol Hill after taking part in group chat with other members of the office, in which confidential information about raids was incorrectly mentioned before the journalist.
Wednesday of testimonies from the director of the National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA director John Ratcliffe to the House intelligence committee largely repeated their comments on Tuesday to a similar committee in the Senate, where they claimed that they did not mention any implicit information and the leakage as “error” was described.
“It was a mistake that the reporter was accidentally added to a signal chat with high -level national security directors, conducting a political discussion on the upcoming strikes against Houthi and the effects of strikes,” Gabbard testified. “The conversation was honest and sensitive, but as the President’s National Security Advisor said, no classified information was made available.”
The full transcription of chat, published on Wednesday by the Atlantic, takes up the position of defense secretary Pete Hegeth, showing “the exact times of combat premiere, strike packages and goals – before men and women fly these attacks on Houthi Yemenu in this month on behalf of the United States,” were in the air.
“Nobody sends SMS of war plans,,” hegeSeth reporters told asphalt reporters in Honolulu on Wednesday before traveling to Guam, the Philippines and Japan. “There are no units, locations, routes, flight paths, sources, methods, classified information.”
US representative Brian Fitzpatrick (R., Pa.), One of the three representatives of Pennsylvania in the House intelligence committee, was not questioned by Gabbard or Ratcliffe on the chat of the signal group during the session of the Committee on the Capitol.
Instead, Fitzpatrick asked one question about the re -authorization of the Act on foreign intelligence in Section 702, which was updated last year to enable the government to collect certain communication between US citizens without an order.
Fitzpatrick, a former FBI agent, who represents the Bucks Embarrassment and a petite part of Montgomery, said on Monday that he “assumes” that there would be an investigation into the leak, but ceased to criticize Trump officials or call members to resign.
This was in line with other republicans who avoided delving into controversy, disregarded the leak as a mistake to learn, and not the issue of national security to examine. Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary of the White House, said on Wednesday that Trump still has “great trust” in his national security team and only one highest Republican – Senator Roger Wicker (R., Miss.), Chairman of the Senate of the Armed Services Committee – openly called for the investigation from Wednesday in the afternoon.
“I think that the most important thing is that this is not the way this information has been provided, but the actions that were taken to attack the rebels of Jemens who direct our sailors and international Saudi Arabia for over a year,” Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark), chairman of the Senate intelligence committee told reporters to reporters.
US representative Scott Perry (R., Pa.), Honest supporter of Trump, who tried to overthrow the results of Pennsylvania’s election in 2020, did not press Gabbard or Ratcliffe on a signal chat. Instead, Perry used his time on Wednesday to ask questions about immigration and China, including the claim that the country was buying a “wide scale” swath of land in the United States.
At the end of 2023, China had 277 336 acres of American land, less than 1% of all foreign land in the country, According to the joint report of the Farm Service Agency and the US Department of Agriculture. The report noted that foreign land is less than 2% of all land in the United States.
Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D., Pa.) It was more likely to question the most significant Trump’s intelligence officials, questioning Gabbard’s comment that HegeSeth had the highest authority in the information on group chat with classified or flared.
“You are the days,” Houlhan said during the interrogation, adding a chat included many members of the office and “did not have a successful chat.”
Houlahan, a former air force officer who represents most of the Chester, said that HegSeth should give up and pressed the reluctant Gabard to fully examine the incident.
“Yes, I will follow the law,” Gabbard testified.
Houlahan also blew up Ratcliffe, who confirmed that he was in chat because he suggests that the Democrats set politics from national security, focusing on discussions about the rapid rating.
“I think it is offensive to accuse me as a democrat, not taking care of national threats,” said Houlhan. “My task is to ask these questions, because when I served in the army and served in classified environments, if it happened to me, I would immediately resign.”
“Communication with this kind of signaling is not right,” added Houlahan. “Objectives, times, such things are absolutely classified and we all know about it. I know this. These people know about it. You all know that.”
Andy Kim among Democrats calling HegeSeth to resign
US Senator Andy Andy Kim (D., Nj) was one of the Democrats who called HegeSetha to give up on Wednesday after the publication of “shocking” details of the signal chat.
“As someone who had previously worked in the situation, I can’t believe that HegeSeth would recklessly write to information that could put the goal to our pilots and website members,” she wrote Kim in social media. “He must give up.”
Senator Mark Kelly (D., Ariz.), A retired combat pilot and Navy astronaut, also called HegSetha to resign, describing the former host of Fox News as “the most under -eligible secretary of defense we’ve ever seen.”
“We are lucky that it did not cost any soldiers of their lives, but for the safety of our army and our country” Kelly wrote in social media.
The leader of the home minority, Hakeem Jeffries, was the highest rank of democrats to call HegeSetha to resign from Trump’s saying in a letter that the former Fox News host was “unplanned” to serve as secretary of defense.
“The so-called defense secretary recklessly and freely revealed highly sensitive war plans-at that time, the time of the ongoing attack, possible impact targets and weapons for use-during the unplassified chat of the national security group, which inexplicably included a reporter,” Jeffries in a letter, which, who in who wrote Jeffries It was obtained by the New York Times. “His behavior shocks his conscience, risked American life and probably violated the law.”
