Trump’s top intelligence officer claim that no classified information has been forwarded in the group chat with a journalist

President Donald Trump’s best intelligence officers claimed on Tuesday that they did not share classified materials in a group text via US military plans that accidentally contain a journalist.

Tulsi Gabbard, director of the national secret services, and John Ratcliffe, director of CIA, played the misfortune in a controversial intelligence agency of the Senate one day after hearing the Atlantic Jeffrey Goldberg atlantic, that he had been added to a text -thread on US military plans for the strike from Houthi militia in Yemen.

The incident has raised questions about dealing with classified information from the Trump management and the use of the encrypted messaging use signal and other electronic communication.

In terms of certificate, Ratcliffe admitted that he was in the text chain, but said it was “lawful”. He said the Signal app was invited to his work computer on the CIA when he started the job and claimed that it was allowed as a communication instrument for work purposes.

He did not start whether it was appropriate to exchange detailed military signal plans.

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Gabard, who asked Democrats whether the time and the location of planned military strikes were shared in the chat, replied: “I can confirm that there were no classified or secret services that were included in this chat group at some point.”

Goldberg, the editor -in -chief of the magazine and an experienced national security journalist, reported that the signal thread Ratcliffe and Gabard as well as the Vice President JD Vance, Foreign Minister Marco Rubio, Defense Minister Pete Hegseth and Michael Waltz, Defense Minister Pete Hegseth and National Security Adviser.

In a FOX News interview on Tuesday evening, Waltz said that he took over the “full responsibility” for the organization of the text group and that an employee was not responsible for Goldberg’s admission.

“I take full responsibility. I have built the group,” said Waltz Host Laura Ingraham. “My job is to ensure that everything is coordinated.”

The military plan discussed in the group chat “contained precise information about weapon packages, goals and timing”, wrote Goldberg in his article. He said he would refrain from reporting specific information that is shared in the chat that could damage national security.

In an exchange with Senator Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., Gabbard said that she does not remember the discussion about certain weapons, goals or timing.

The secret service officers both said on Tuesday that Hegseth was the “original classification authority” in the chat. Goldberg reported that a message from a signal account called “Pete Hegseth” “Operative details of the upcoming strikes for Yemen, including information about goals, weapons that use the United States and attack the attack sequence” contained.

Ratcliffe and Gabard answered a question from Senator Ron Wyden, D-ORE.

In a statement on Monday, the National Security Council stated “to check how an unintentional number was added to the chain”.

Gabard did not answer any questions about whether she used her personal phone or her telephone issued by the government and cited the fact that the signal problem was “examined”.

The FBI director Kash Patel, one of the other witnesses on Tuesday, said that he was informed about the incident on Monday evening and did not say whether he wanted to create an investigation.

The hearing was often heated. The Democrats asked aggressive questions and accused the witnesses of jeopardizing national security.

Wyden said he believed that Hegseth and Waltz should step down. Senator Mark Warner, D-VA., The Razed Democrat in the intelligence agency, said that it was “stunning for me that all these older people were in this line and that nobody has the trouble to check” whether a journalist or another unauthorized person was in chat.

In his opening speech, Warner had The Trump administration blew up for a “cavalizing attitude towards classified information” and described it as “ruthless” and “sloppy”.

“The signal fiasco is not one -time,” said Warner. “Unfortunately, it is a pattern that we repeat too often.”

“The lack of willingness of the people in this panel who were in the chat to apologize for the fact that a colossal screwing is, speaks volumes,” he added.

Warner quoted an earlier incident in January, when the CIA, which intended a presidential trigger, sent an unclassified E -Mail to the Office of Personal Management with the first names and initiated the last name of the recently commissioned employees at the Spy Agency.

Senator Michael Bennet, D-Colo., Grilled Ratcliffe about whether Trump’s special representative Steve Witkoff took place when the group chat was discussed.

“This sloppiness, this incompetence, this disrespect for our secret services and the staff who works for him is completely unacceptable. It is a embarrassment,” said Bennet. He added: “You have to do it better. You have to do better.”

Senator Tom Cotton, R-Mark, the chairman of the committee, did not address the signal text chain directly in his prepared opening speeches. The Republican senators mainly focused on other questions, including drug cartels and China.

Trump, who spoke to NBC News by phone on Tuesday, was at Waltz. Goldberg reported that he was added to the Signal Chat after receiving an inquiry from a user identified as Waltz.

“Michael Waltz has learned a lesson and he is a good man,” said Trump.

Trump spoke out of the White House in a long back and forth with reporters on Tuesday. Trump replaced the events and said that the chat contained “no classified information as I understand it”.

“They used an app that I understand that many people in the government of the government, many people in media use,” he said.

Waltz, who was in the room to meet ambassadors, Defended himself in the middle of repeated questions about when Trump from chat and how. Waltz said they wanted to investigate how Goldberg was added to the chat and whether the signal is safe enough to use for high -ranking discussions.

“We are, we have our technical experts,” he said. “We have our legal teams who look at it. And of course we will keep everything as safe as possible.”

Trump said he didn’t want Waltz to be “injured” by the violation and did not make sure that he apologized, even when he said that the helpers would probably no longer use signal.

“If it were up to me, everyone would sit together in one room,” said Trump. “The room would have firm bleims and a lead ceiling and a front floor. But they know that life doesn’t always let it.”