Top Democrat accuses Trump officials of lying as Gabbard again denies classified information shared in group chat – live

The Republican senator Lindsey Graham defended Donald Trump and other members of his administration over their handling of the fiasco involving top national security officials discussing US military attack plans in Yemen in a group chat that inadvertently included the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg. “President Trump and his team have admitted that having a journalist in the group text was wrong, will be reviewed and falls in the category of ‘lessons learned’ so that it doesn’t happen again,” Graham said in a statement. “I believe that all the participants in the chat were under the impression they were using an appropriate and secure form of communication. This will also fall into the category of ‘lessons learned’. “However recent revelations about the content of the texts – while not discussing war plans per se – do in fact detail very sensitive information about a planned and ongoing military operation,” he added. The US district court judge James Boasberg, whom the government has argued cannot be trusted with sensitive information in the Alien Enemies Act case, has been assigned to oversee a lawsuit alleging that government officials violated federal record-keeping laws when they used a group chat to discuss a planned military strike in Yemen, Politico reports. “Messages in the Signal chat about official government actions, including, but not limited to, national security deliberations, are federal records and must be preserved in accordance with federal statutes, and agency directives, rules, and regulations,” the plaintiffs argue. The Illinois Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi had an aide hold up Signal messages released by the Atlantic that showed the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, shared in the group exact details of the strikes against the Houthis. “This is classified information. It’s a weapon system as well as sequence of strikes, as well as details about the operations,” Krishnamoorthi said. “This text message is clearly classified information. Secretary Hegseth has disclosed military plans as well as classified information. He needs to resign immediately.” Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, who grilled top security officials during Tuesday’s Senate intelligence committee briefing, appeared on Morning Joe this morning to discuss the recently released text messages published by the Atlantic on Wednesday. “Well it sure answers that the two witnesses I believe lied when they said, ‘Oh, nothing to see here, nothing classified,’” he said. “You would have to be an idiot not to understand that what Jeffrey [Goldberg] just laid out is at a huge classification level. That if it had fallen into enemy hands and the Houthis had been able to realign their offenses, American lives could be lost,” he added. Warner and other senators questioned Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence, and CIA director John Ratcliffe about the group chat that discussed war plans for upcoming military strikes in Yemen. Gabbard said on Tuesday that “there was no classified material” in the Signal chat. As he had done before the Senate the day before, CIA director John Ratcliffe insisted he broke no rules and did not share classified information. “I used an appropriate channel to communicate sensitive information. It was permissible to do so. I didn’t transfer any classified information. And at the end of the day, what is most important is that the mission was a remarkable success is what everyone should be focused on here, because that’s what did happen, not possibly could have happened,” Ratcliffe told the House intelligence committee. The House intelligence committee’s top Democrat Jim Himes asked Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, why she had told senators on Tuesday that no details of timing, targets or weapons were revealed in the Signal group chat. The Atlantic this morning published the transcript of the chat, which showed that defense secretary Pete Hegseth shared such details with the chat’s participants ahead of the US military’s airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen. “My answer yesterday was based on my recollection, or the lack thereof, on the details that were posted there ... What was shared today reflects the fact that I was not directly involved with that part of the Signal chat and replied at the end, reflecting the effects, the very brief effects that the national security advisor had shared,” Gabbard replied. The director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, said on Wednesday’s hearing that “it was a mistake” that a journalist was inadvertently included in a Signal chat with top national security officials discussing imminent strikes against the Houthis in Yemen. She doubled down on the claim that no classified information was discussed in the chat. “The president and national adviser Waltz held a press conference with a clear message. It was a mistake that a reporter was inadvertently added to a Signal chat with high-level national security principles having a policy discussion about imminent strikes against the Houthis and the effects of the strike,” she said. “National security adviser has taken full responsibility for this, and the National Security Council is conducting an in depth review, along with tech, technical experts working to determine how this reporter was inadvertently added to this chat,” she added. “The conversation was candid and sensitive, but as the president, national security adviser stated, no classified information was shared. There were no sources, methods, locations or war plans that were shared. This was a standard update to the national security cabinet that was provided alongside updates that were given to foreign partners in the region,” Gabbard said. Gabbard said that the messaging app Signal “comes pre-installed on government devices”. “Ideally, these conversations occur in person. However, at times, fast-moving coordination of an unclassified nature is necessary, or in person, conversation is not an option.” On Wednesday’s hearing, the Democratic representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, the ranking member of the House permanent select committee on intelligence, condemned defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s handling of the alleged inadvertent leak of a chat about war plans on the messaging app Signal. “There’s only one response to a mistake of this magnitude: you apologize, you own it, and you stop everything until you can figure out what went wrong, and how it might not ever happen again. That’s not what happened,” Himes said. “The Secretary of Defense responded with a brutal attack on the reporter who did not ask to be on the Signal chain yesterday. Our former colleague Mike Waltz did the same in the White House and then went on Fox to call Jeff Goldberg a loser. What do you think the people who work for you are seeing and learning from that?” he added. CIA director John Ratcliffe, director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, FBI director Kash Patel, and other national security officials are testifying on global threats before the House intelligence committee. The hearing comes about two hours after the Atlantic published the text messages sent in a Signal group chat discussing the US military operation in Yemen. The chair of the House permanent select committee on intelligence, Rick Crawford of Arkansas, addressed Tuesday’s security hearing, which was blanketed with questions about the use of the Signal messaging app by US officials and whether classified information was discussed in the chat. “Unfortunately, instead of exploiting the real and existential threats that face our nation, which is the purpose of this hearing, this issue consumed most of their time,” Crawford said. “While I will address this topic further in my questions, it’s my sincere hope that we use this hearing to discuss the many foreign threats facing our nation. I have deep concerns about the state of our national security,” he added. In a post on social media platform X, the vice-president, JD Vance, wrote: It’s very clear Goldberg oversold what he had. But one thing in particular really stands out. Remember when he was attacking Ratcliffe for blowing the cover for a CIA agent? Turns out Ratcliffe was simply naming his chief of staff. Mike Waltz, the national security adviser who invited Atlantic journalist Jeffrey Goldberg into a top-secret US military planning group chat, has played down the impact of leaked text messages, which may have compromised national security. In a post on X, Waltz wrote: No locations. No sources & methods. NO WAR PLANS. Foreign partners had already been notified that strikes were imminent. BOTTOM LINE: President Trump is protecting America and our interests. As previously reported, the Atlantic make the point that if hostile entities had received the texts “or someone merely indiscreet and with access to social media”, the Houthis could have prepared “for what was meant to be a surprise attack on their strongholds. The consequences for American pilots could have been catastrophic.” Former Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh says that Pete Hegseth put the lives of US military personnel at risk. Writing on X Singh said: Pete Hegseth put the sequencing of the entire operation & types of aircraft that would be used to conduct these strikes all before the operation took place. He put the lives of our fighter pilots at risk. Details like this are classified. I am absolutely floored. The conversation in the Signal texts published today by the Atlantic magazine focused on attacks on the Houthis and included barbs directed at the US’s European allies. The Atlantic reports that on the day of the attack on 15 March 2025, the discussion veered toward the operational. The thread released today by the Atlantic begins with Hegseth under the heading “TEAM UPDATE”: Weather is FAVORABLE. Just CONFIRMED w/CENTCOM we are a GO for mission launch. Hegseth continued: 1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package) 1345et: ‘Trigger Based’ F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME – also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s) The Atlantic make the point that if these texts had been received by hostile entities “or someone merely indiscreet, and with access to social media”, the Houthis could have prepared “for what was meant to be a surprise attack on their strongholds. The consequences for American pilots could have been catastrophic.” The Hegseth text then continued with details about when the bombs “will definitely drop”: We are currently clean on OPSEC”–that is, operational security. Godspeed to our Warriors. Shortly after, the vice-president, JD Vance, texted the group: I will say a prayer for victory. Then at 1.48 pm, Waltz sent the following text, which the Atlantic say contained “real-time intelligence about conditions at an attack site”: VP. Building collapsed. Had multiple positive ID. Pete, Kurilla, the IC, amazing job. The Atlantic claim that Waltz was referring to Hegseth, Gen Michael E Kurilla, the commander of Central Command, and the intelligence community. Vance then wrote: “What?” presumably because he didn’t understand. At 2 pm, Waltz wrote: Typing too fast. The first target – their top missile guy – we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed. The Atlantic report that Vance wrote in his reply: “Excellent.” Then 35 minutes later, Ratcliffe, the CIA director, wrote: “A good start,” which prompted Waltz to send a fist emoji, an American flag emoji, and a fire emoji. Finally, Hegseth posted: Great job all. More strikes ongoing for hours tonight, and will provide full initial report tomorrow. But on time, on target, and good readouts so far. The Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg says he does not know why he was included in the Signal group chat. The Atlantic has decided to release the text messages allegedly inadvertently leaked to them about a US military operation in Yemen. They included details of US bombings, drone launches and targeting information of the assault, including descriptions of weather conditions. The Atlantic claim that “statements by Hegseth, Gabbard, Ratcliffe, and Trump – combined with the assertions made by numerous administration officials that we are lying about the content of the Signal texts – have led us to believe that people should see the texts in order to reach their own conclusions”. The magazine added that they think there is a “clear public interest” in releasing the texts and then reproduced numerous messages from the chat between the Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth, and top intelligence officials. They included details of US bombings, drone launches and targeting information of the assault, including descriptions of weather conditions. More to follow … For more than a year, students at US colleges and universities have participated in protests in support of Palestine, as Israel’s war has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023. Students have faced suspensions and expulsions over encampment demonstrations and other actions, as schools crack down on participation. Now, at least five students and academics of color at US universities have been targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), as a part of the Trump administration’s ongoing punishment on Palestinian support. “What we’re seeing is the use of immigration law to go after visa holders, permanent lawful residents, [over] their speech,” said Samah Sisay, a staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR). “He’s trying to suppress political speech that goes against what the administration wants.” Despite white students, professors and academics also being heavily involved pro-Palestinian protests, people of color have disproportionately faced sudden arrests and threats of deportation or had their visas revoked. “We’re just seeing the focus on very specific people,” said Sisay, referring to academics of color. “I think it really is to try to create a wedge in solidarity, the multiracial, multiethnic solidarity that’s been created in support of Palestinian human rights.” Ice’s actions, she said, have “set a warning for students of color at these universities who rely on scholarships and educational support to improve their lives or better the situations for their family”. A Democrat won a state senate seat in a Pennsylvania district that overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump, offering a ray of hope for the party as it continues to struggle nationally with its response to the Trump administration. James Malone triumphed on Tuesday in the 36th senatorial district, which voted for Trump over Kamala Harris by more than 15 points in last November’s presidential election, in a victory that Democratic party leadership said “should put Republicans on edge”. It served as a major upset win for the party, which has seen recriminations spill out into the open after Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate minority leader, voted for Republicans’ funding bill to avoid a government shutdown this month. “I’m very excited and really, really happy that all the work we put in has paid off,” Malone, who won the district by 482 votes, told WGAL-TV. Under pressure from his rightwing base to challenge judges who have ruled against Donald Trump, speaker of the House Mike Johnson suggested on Tuesday that Congress could consider eliminating certain federal courts. It forms part of a broader assault on the judiciary, spurred by court decisions that have blocked several Trump administration actions, NBC News reports. Beyond threats of defunding, Trump and his supporters have called for the impeachment of federal judges who have opposed him – most notably US district judge James Boasberg, who sought to halt the president’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants. “We do have the authority over the federal courts, as you know. We can eliminate an entire district court. We have power of funding over the courts and all these other things,” Johnson told reporters on Tuesday. “But desperate times call for desperate measures, and Congress is going to act.” The best-known member of Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) service team of technologists once provided support to a cybercrime gang that bragged about trafficking in stolen data and cyberstalking an FBI agent, according to digital records reviewed by Reuters. Edward Coristine is among the most visible members of the Doge effort that has been given sweeping access to official networks as it attempts to radically downsize the US government. It is headed by Musk – the world’s richest person – with a powerful mandate from Donald Trump. Past reporting had focused on the staffer’s age – he is 19 – and his chosen nickname of “bigballs”, which became a pop culture punchline. Musk has championed the teen on his social media site X, telling his followers last month: “Big Balls is awesome.” Beginning around 2022, while still in high school, Coristine ran a company called DiamondCDN that provided network services, according to corporate and digital records reviewed by Reuters and interviews with half a dozen former associates. Among its users was a website run by a ring of cybercriminals operating under the name “EGodly”, according to digital records preserved by the internet intelligence firm DomainTools and the online cybersecurity tool Any.Run. The details of Coristine’s connection to EGodly have not been previously reported. Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting law firms and attorneys who challenge his priorities are roiling the legal community, with some capitulating to the administration’s demands amid mounting pressure on the US’s biggest firms to speak out. The president signed an executive order on Tuesday targeting the firm Jenner & Block over its previous employment of Andrew Weissman, a prosecutor who worked on Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump’s connections to Russia. The order came after Trump issued similar executive orders targeting three other firms – Covington and Burling, Perkins Coie, and Paul Weiss – over their representation of his political rivals. Those orders have threatened to cripple the firms by revoking the security clearances of their lawyers, ending access to government buildings and forcing clients who do business with the government to disclose if they are represented by the firm. Trump also issued a separate executive order on Friday directing US attorney general Pam Bondi to investigate lawyers taking actions to block the administration’s priorities. California representative John Garamendi has suggested Pete Hegseth shared top secret information in a Signal group chat with national security officials due to “personal inadequacies”, the Hill reports. “What in the hell are you guys doing? And why are you doing that on a commercial chat platform? Makes absolutely no sense. And it’s, in fact, extraordinarily dangerous,” Garamendi told NewsNation on Tuesday. “And then you bring in the secretary of defense and perhaps for his own personal inadequacies for the job, he decides that he’s got to show that he’s got the really big, important stuff that he can then share with the other teenagers that are chatting about this.” Look, it could happen to anyone: I well remember, for example, the time I added my mum to a thread with my siblings discussing what to get her for Christmas. On the other hand, I don’t have a secure communications facility in my house for when I need to get something out on the family group chat. Also, we rarely digress from pictures of cute kids to setting out war plans for an imminent set of airstrikes on the Houthis in Yemen. So perhaps the latest Trump administration hullabaloo isn’t that relatable, after all. Two days after the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg revealed that he had been mystifyingly added to a thread on Signal – an encrypted WhatsApp-like instant messaging app – in which vice-president JD Vance, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, and a host of others chatted about a highly sensitive operation, there are as many questions as answers. How on earth did Goldberg get added in the first place? Why didn’t anybody realise the error? Are White House officials doing this all the time? And how vulnerable are their communications to interception from America’s adversaries? Today’s newsletter explains this absolute dumpster fire of a story, and why it matters: To sign up to our morning briefing newsletter, see here. Mike Waltz has said he takes “full responsibility” for the security breach, as he had created the Signal group, but emphasised there was no classified information shared. Democratic US Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and top Senate Democrats on Wednesday wrote a letter to Republican president Donald Trump and his top officials urging a justice department probe into how a journalist was inadvertently included in a secret group discussion of sensitive war plans. Trump administration officials have claimed no classified material was shared in the group chat on Signal, an encrypted commercial messaging app. Democratic senators voiced scepticism, noting that the journalist, Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, reported that defense secretary Pete Hegseth posted operational details about pending strikes against Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis, “including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing”. “We write to you with extreme alarm about the astonishingly poor judgment shown by your Cabinet and national security advisers,” the Democratic senators wrote in Wednesday’s letter, Reuters reported. “Moreover, given that willful or negligent disclosure of classified or sensitive national security information may constitute a criminal violation of the Espionage Act or other laws, we expect attorney general Bondi to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation of the conduct of the government officials involved in improperly sharing or discussing such information,” the letter added. Trump said his administration would look into the use of Signal but voiced support for his national security team when questioned about the incident at a White House event on Tuesday with Michael Waltz, his national security adviser. Trump said he did not think Waltz should apologise, but said he did not think Waltz and the team would be using Signal again soon. Denmark’s foreign minister on Wednesday welcomed a US decision to alter a planned visit to Greenland that had sparked a diplomatic standoff between Copenhagen and the White House amid Donald Trump’s interest in taking over the island. Denmark’s prime minister had said on Tuesday that a planned visit by Usha Vance, the wife of US vice-president JD Vance, to a popular dog-sled race in Greenland was part of an “unacceptable pressure” on the semi-autonomous Danish territory. The White House on Tuesday announced that the delegation would instead be headed by JD Vance himself, but that it would only visit the US space base at Pituffik in northern Greenland and not the dog-sled race, Reuters reported. “I think it’s very positive that the Americans cancelled their visit to the Greenlandic society. Instead, they will visit their own base, Pituffik, and we have nothing against that,” foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen told broadcaster DR. Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem on Wednesday will visit the high-security El Salvador prison where Venezuelans who the Trump administration alleges are members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang have been held since their removal from the US. Noem’s trip to the prison – where the incarcerated are packed into cells and never allowed outside – comes as the Trump administration seeks to show it is deporting people it describes as the “worst of the worst”. Since taking office, Noem has often been front and center in efforts to highlight the immigration crackdown, AP reported. She took part in immigration enforcement operations, rode horses with Border Patrol agents and was the face of a television campaign warning people in the country illegally to self-deport. Noem’s Wednesday visit is part of a three-day trip. She will also travel to Colombia and Mexico. Good morning and welcome to the US politics live blog. My name is Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours. We start with news that Donald Trump’s top intelligence officials will brief House members on Wednesday on global threats facing the US where it is likely they will be questioned again over use of a group text to discuss plans for military strikes in Yemen. CIA director John Ratcliffe, director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and FBI director Kash Patel are among those who were asked to testify before the House intelligence committee as part of its annual review of threats facing the US. Tuesday’s hearing was dominated by questions about Ratcliffe and Gabbard’s participation in a group chat on Signal in which they discussed plans to strike Houthi rebels in Yemen. The group included a journalist, the Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg. Gabbard and Ratcliffe have said no classified information was included in the messages, but Democrats have decried the use of the messaging app, saying that any release of information about timetables, weapons or military activities could have put US service members at risk. At Tuesday’s hearing they asked Patel, who was not a participant in the text chain, if he would investigate. It is likely House Democrats will press Patel on the same question on Wednesday. The national security council has said it will investigate the matter, which Trump on Tuesday downplayed as a “glitch”. Goldberg said he received the Signal invitation from Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, who was also in the group chat. In other news: The Senate voted to confirm Marty Makary as the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and Jay Bhattacharya as director of the National Institutes of Health. Both men were skeptics of the Covid-19 response. In a letter to Trump on Tuesday, representative Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democratic minority in the House, demanded that the president fire his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, for disclosing secret war plans for strikes on Yemen to a Signal group that included a journalist. Ignoring the uproar in Greenland over the plan for his wife, Usha Vance, to visit the territory this week without an invitation, the US vice-president, JD Vance, announced in a video message that he plans to join her. The White House did, however, scrap plans for the second lady to attend a public event.