The revelation that top Trump Administration officials used an encrypted messaging app to discuss sensitive military operations set off an escalating battle in the Capitol on Tuesday, as lawmakers suggested significant national security protocols may have been breached and pushed for further investigation.
Lawmakers from both parties are now calling for the full exchange to be released after Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe testified on Tuesday that no classified information was shared in the Signal group chat, which had mistakenly included a journalist.
The Signal chat, which reportedly included Vice President J.D. Vance, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, has raised concerns that the Trump Administration is not taking the security of sensitive national security deliberations seriously enough. The chat came to public attention after The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, revealed on Monday that he had been accidentally included in the discussion. In his article, Goldberg quoted discussions in the chat about an active military operation, but omitted information he described as relating to weapons packages, strike timing, and target details for an active military operation—the March 15 U.S. air assault on Yemen’s Houthi militants.
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, tells TIME that Goldberg should release the messages in their entirety in light of what Trump officials testified to at Tuesday’s hearing. “Yes, especially since they said there’s nothing classified, which is absurd on its face, because you have disputes between senior policy leaders about a potential military attack,” Warner says. “The CIA would give an arm and a leg to get that on China and Russia… Trump officials are saying ‘There’s no problem here.’ Well, let’s see.”
The White House has downplayed the controversy, with President Trump himself claiming there “was no classified information” shared on the Signal chain.
Republican lawmakers have largely aligned with the Administration’s stance, viewing the concerns as politically motivated attacks. Still, some Republicans expressed unease after Tuesday’s hearing, and said they hoped to see more information. “Well, I think we need to find out what the facts are,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, tells TIME. “The Intel committee will look and see if it meets the definition of classified information.” Pressed on whether resignations should be expected if the messages did meet the definition of classified information, he hedged: “I don’t know. We’ll find out.”
Read More: As Democrats Call for Resignations, Republicans React More Tepidly to Leaked Trump Officials’ War Plans Group Chat
Others were even more reluctant to discuss anyone involved in the chat facing any consequences. Sen. Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas and chair of the Senate Intelligence panel, refused to comment when asked by TIME if National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth should be fired if classified material was sent over the unsecured platform—a possible violation of federal law. Sen. James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma who is on the Intelligence Committee, outright rejected the idea of calling for resignations even if the messages contained classified information. “No, I would say, first off, way ahead of knowing what was actually there,” Lankford told TIME on Tuesday. “Second, this is an internal conversation among the White House team, and many of those folks are people that work directly for the President at his pleasure. So they don’t work for me. They work for the President.”
Lankford also dismissed calls for Goldberg to publish the full text of the messages, saying, “No, I think that he should use his best judgment on that.” Asked whether releasing the messages would help with fact-finding, he responded, “I have no idea, honestly, because internal conversations are internal conversations.”
During Tuesday’s hearing, Gabbard and Ratcliffe repeatedly insisted that the group chat did not contain classified information. But under scrutiny from Democratic Senators, their answers became increasingly nuanced. While Gabbard initially deflected about her participation in the chain, she later said that no information under the direct purview of the intelligence community was discussed. Ratcliffe also attempted to shift responsibility, arguing that it was up to the Department of Defense to determine classification standards and that “Signal is a permissible work-use application” for the CIA.
Read More: Top Trump Officials Defend Signal Chat in Testimony to Congress
Signal is often recommended for use by privacy advocates because of its encrypted messaging, but it is generally not considered secure enough for national security issues. Goldberg reported that some of the messages in the Signal group were set to disappear after one week, and some after four.
Democrats found the responses from Trump officials unsatisfactory. Sen. Angus King, independent of Maine, pressed Gabbard on what would have happened if details about military targets and strike sequencing had been made public the morning before the attack in Yemen took place. She declined to answer directly, saying she would defer to the National Security Council and the Pentagon on whether targeting information should have been classified. “You’re the head of the intelligence community,” King said. “You’re supposed to know about classifications.”
The broader political implications of the controversy are also coming into focus. For years, Republicans have fiercely criticized past administrations for alleged mishandling of classified materials. “I would imagine if you looked at what those Senators had to say about Hillary’s emails, you’d see a pretty striking contrast,” Sen. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, told TIME, referring to the years of unrelenting attacks from Republicans over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server while in the Obama Administration.
Despite these calls for accountability, Republican leaders have shown little appetite for aggressive oversight. Not one Republican Senator on the Intelligence Committee asked Gabbard or Ratcliffe about the chat scandal during Tuesday’s open hearing. Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker, a Republican of Mississippi, confirmed to CNN that his committee would look into the matter but provided little details.
“If we can’t unite around national security, if we can’t unite about this kind of careless behavior…” Warner told TIME, “I think there will be concerns [from Republicans] but they’ve got to be moved from private concerns to public concerns.”
Goldberg remains at the center of the storm, as Warner and other Democrats call on him to release more of the conversation he was inadvertently let in on. Doing so could provide clarity on whether the chat was the reckless breach of national security protocols critics argue it was. At the Senate hearing on Tuesday, FBI Director Kash Patel refused to say that Goldberg would not be held legally liable if he decided to publish the full messages. “I’m not going to prejudge the situation, and that legal call is ultimately for the Department of Justice,” he said.
