A Democratic lawmaker claims he was stunned by a revelation by director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard during a congressional hearing.
Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) pressed Gabbard on details about a group chat where she and other high-ranking officials took part in planning a bombing raid on Yemen, but a journalist had been added to the discussion apparently by mistake, and Crow said that raised concerns about the operational security – especially since she and another participant were overseas.
"[Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, the Department of Defense's senior military intelligence official] also issued a warning about vulnerabilities to the Signal app recently, correct?" Crow asked, and Gabbard agreed. "Director Gabbard, you were on the Signal text chain in question, correct? As was [special envoy Steve] Witkoff, the administration's lead negotiator with the Russians, correct, and at the time, Mr. Witkoff was actually in Russia during this chat discussion, was he not?"
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Gabbard stated that she was not aware of that, adding that she did not know whether he used his personal phone to access the chat, and then Crow asked where she was at the time of the March 15 group chat later revealed by The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg.
"I was traveling through the Asia-Pacific region," she said. "I don't recall which country I was in at that time."
Crow expressed incredulity at that assertion by Gabbard, who said she would have to go back and review her schedule, and the congressman told CNN afterward that her explanations were not plausible.
"It's very clear what happened here, it's very clear." Crow said. "I mean, anybody can see this, right? They talked about mission planning and operational information over a non-secure chain. That is classified information by the director of national intelligence's own standards. But what's worse is that they just won't admit it. They won't accept responsibility, they won't say what everybody else knows to be true. They're just hiding it, they're trying to sweep it under the rug, and that's what's most shocking to me."
The Colorado Democrat said that Gabbard, CIA director John Ratcliffe and FBI director Kash Patel were not giving truthful answers about the situation.
"Their story seems to change by the day," Crow said. "Yesterday they were they were before the Senate Intelligence Committee, today they're telling a different story, largely, before the House Intelligence Committee, so I'm really concerned about their lack of candor, them distorting the truth, their inability to remember key facts, like who was on the text chain, what country you were in when you were actually texting – really pretty stunning stuff that, you know, as a high-level, high-functioning individual, you should know where in the world were you."
"I'm not inside the mind of Donald Trump or these folks, I don't spend my time inside of their minds – it's not where I want to go, but this is very damaging stuff," he added. "You know, I think I made a pretty clear case just a few minutes ago that the Houthis, who are the organization that was the subject of the strikes, actually are very sophisticated military rebel group. They have some of the most advanced anti-aircraft systems in the world. They've indeed shot down U.S. weapons systems, thankfully, unmanned U.S. weapons systems. But we just sent pilots – Americans, our sons and daughters, our mothers and fathers – to do an extremely risky strike over enemy territory not too long ago, and the people sending them into harm's way to do that strike were talking about it in advance of the strike over a non-secure platform. Everybody should be appalled by that."
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