At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing held Tuesday morning, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe repeatedly denied any wrongdoing related to a Signal group chat where administration officials discussed sensitive military operations, a chat that accidentally included The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg.
Neither Gabbard's opening statement, delivered on behalf of Ratcliffe and FBI director Kash Patel, nor the initial remarks of chairman Tom Cotton, R-Ark., mentioned the emerging scandal. Republicans in general have been forgiving of the Trump administration over the chat, though a minority have joined Democrats in calling it an egregious breach of national security protocol.
When Democrats on the panel tried to question Gabbard on her role in the group chat, including whether or not she was the user named "TG" and if she used a private cell phone while participating in discussions, she tried her best to dodge.
"Senator, I don't want to get into this," she said, to the exasperation of the committee's ranking member, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va.
Pressed further, Gabbard insisted that she couldn't talk about the issue because, she said, it was under internal review. Both she and Ratcliffe also claimed that none of the information on the Signal group chat, which included detailed plans for bombing targets in Yemen and how U.S. planes would deliver the payload, was classified. Ratcliffe furthermore explained that their use of the Signal app to discuss those operations was perfectly legal and appropriate.
"To be clear, I haven't participated in any Signal group messaging that relates to any classified information at all," Ratcliffe said.
Sen. Angus King, I-Me., expressed skepticism of such a claim. "It's hard for me to believe that targets and timing and weapons would not have been classified," he told Gabbard, who remained nonplussed.
"This is an embarrassment," Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., said over Ratcliffe's objections. "We will get the full transcript of this chain and your testimony will be measured carefully against its content."
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Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., castigated the CIA director for not only missing Goldberg's presence, but also apparently being unaware that one of the chat's members, Trump's Middle East advisor Steve Witkoff, was in Moscow as officials volleyed ideas over how to bomb Houthi targets.
"This sloppiness, this incompetence, this disrespect for our intelligence agencies and the personnel who work for them is entirely unacceptable. It's an embarassement. You need to do better," Bennet said.
The officials did not confirm how Goldberg came to be part of the chat, though The Atlantic editor said in his article Monday that it was National Security Advisor Mike Waltz who was responsible. The White House has since issued statements asserting that Waltz had learned from his mistake and would continue in his role.
Patel, who was not reported to be a member of the group chat, told panel members that he was only briefed on the leak last night; he did not say if he had launched an investigation yet. Both Gabbard and Ratcliffe said that they would be open to audits of their communications.
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