TRANSCRIPT
JON OSOFF: "No, no, you hold on. No, no, Director Ratcliffe, I asked you a yes or no question, and now you'll hold on. A national political reporter..."
JOHN RATCLIFFE: "You can characterise it how you want..."
OSOFF: "…was made privy to the White House sensitive information about imminent military operations against a foreign terrorist organisation."
RATCLIFFE: "It was an inadvertent mistake of adding a reporter…"
OSOFF: "And that wasn't a huge mistake? That wasn’t a huge mistake....
RATCLIFFE: "This is an embarrassment."
The Trump administration's group chat scandal has been laid bare before a Senate committee.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe has been among those in the line of fire.
MICHAEL BENNETT: "Do you think that it's perfectly appropriate that there was a reporter added, especially one that the Secretary of Defense says is 'deceitful, highly discredited, a so-called journalist who's made a profession of peddling hoaxes over and over again'. Do you, is your testimony that it was appropriate that he was added to this Signal thread?"
JOHN RATCLIFFE: "No, of course not."
BENNETT: "And why, why did you not call, you are the CIA..."
RATCLIFFE: "You are mischaracterising my testimony."
The use of encrypted messaging app Signal to discuss a sensitive operation has exposed the Trump Administration to blistering criticism from Democratic politicians.
According to an article posted on Monday by The Atlantic, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz appeared to have mistakenly added the magazine's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, to the chat that included 18 senior administration officials.
Among them: US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance.
The article alleges group members were discussing plans for a military strike against Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis, hours before it took place on the 15th of March.
That's said to include precise information about weapons packages, targets and timing, but The Atlantic did not publish those details.
Still, U- President Donald Trump says the backlash faced by Mr Waltz is unfair, instead slighting the journalist.
"I always say you have to learn from every experience. I think it was very unfair the way they attacked Michael, he's a good person. The person that was on just happens to be a sleazebag, so maybe that's just coincidence I don't know."
Mr Waltz has also piled on criticism, claiming people are working against the administration.
"There are a lot of journalists in this city that've made big names for themselves making up lies about this president. Whether it's the Russia hoax or making up lies about Gold Star families, and this one in particular I've never met, don't know, never communicated with, and we are and we are looking into reviewing how the heck he got into this room."
Senior Administration officials told the committee no classified information was included in the texts about US attack plans in the message chain.
That claim has bewildered Democrats and former U-S officials, who regard that kind of targeting information as some of the most closely-held material ahead of a military campaign.
When pressed, the officials struggled to explain why the publicly available app was used to discuss such a delicate matter.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard taking one approach...
MARK KELLY: "Would you consider that classified information? I'm not talking about what happened this week."
TULSI GABBARD: "There are other factors that would go into determining that classification."
...and Mr Ratcliffe taking another.
JOHN RATCLIFFE: "Pre-decisional strike deliberation should be conducted through classified channels."
MARK KELLY: "Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman."
But both equally deflected blame – shifting the spotlight back to Defence Secretary Hegseth, who Mr Goldberg alleges posted the war plans.
Democratic leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, has called on Mr Hegseth to resign. " For the defence secretary to coordinate war plans in such a haphazard and dangerous way puts our national security, our troops, and every single American at risk. This is the man leading our troops into battle and is meant to protect Americans and our national security at all costs. The Senate, as well as all relevant authorities within the executive branch, must investigate this incident fully. Fully."
While repeating the insistence that no classified information was shared in the group, Mr Trump says United States national security remains watertight, but added if he had his way, such information would be conveyed in a room with solid lead walls.
"We have an amazing group. Our national security now is stronger than it's ever been. We have had a very, very successful numerous attacks in that area. These are people that shoot down ships. Not only our ships, ships all over the world, they're shooting down right out of the water and damaging them badly, or they're going down. They're also shooting anything that happens to be flying in the area. We hit them very, very hard. There was no classified information as I understand it."
Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, is not convinced.
"So you're talking about the highest levels of government with the exception of the president of the United States. It's his whole national security team. If they're doing this on this day, I can't imagine that the first time they do this, they accidentally add the editor for The Atlantic. This was probably over the last 60 days, a regular practice. And who else knows what is out there, what has been shared and with what individuals?"
Neither is Republican Senator, Tim Cotton, who's thrown doubt over whether US intelligence agencies are doing their job.
"I know that all of you agree that the core mission of the intelligence community is to steal our adversaries' secrets and convey them to policymakers to protect the United States. At the same time, it's not the role of intelligence agencies to make policy to justify presidential action or to operate like other federal agencies. After years of drift, the intelligence community must recommit to its core mission of collecting clandestine intelligence from adversaries whose main objective is to destroy our nation and our way of life."
