CIA Director Panics When Asked Who Added Reporter to Group Chat

Senator Michael Bennet and CIA Director John Ratcliffe got into an intense back-and-forth over how exactly the editor in chief of The Atlantic got added to a Signal chat in which top defense leaders were debating an attack on the Houthis in Yemen.

“Please answer the question, don’t … insult the intelligence of the American people,” Bennet said at a Senate hearing on security threats on Tuesday. “Did [Goldberg] invite himself to the Signal thread?”

“I don’t know how he was invited, but clearly—” Ratcliffe said before being interrupted.

“Clearly it was?” Bennet said. “Finish your sentence please.”

“Clearly he was added to the Signal group, your question is—”

“So you don’t know that the president’s national security adviser invited [Goldberg] to join the Signal thread? Everybody in America knows that. Does the CIA director not know that?”

“I’ve seen conflicting reports about who added the reporter to the Signal messaging group,” Ratfcliffe waffled.

“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’—is your testimony that it was appropriate that he was added to this Signal thread?”

“No, of course not,” Ratcliffe replied.

“Why did you not—”

“Now hold on Senator, you are mischaracterizing my testimony—”

“You answered the question, let me ask you. When he was added to the thread—you’re the CIA director! Why didn’t you call out that he was present on the Signal thread?”

“I don’t know if you use Signal messaging app—”

“I do! Not for classified information. Not for targeting.”

“Well neither do, I, Senator, neither do I, Senator.”

“Well that’s what your testimony is today!”

“It absolutely is not, Senator, were you not listening at the beginning when I said that I was using it as permitted, and it is permissible to use.”

Ratcliffe went on to insist that the contents of the Signal were not classified—which is hard to believe given the country’s leaders were discussing attack plans on a privately owned third-party messaging app that is not approved for defense officials to use. But apparently this is the story the Trump administration is going with.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s ill-advised Signal chat planning an attack on Yemen went against a Pentagon warning from last week, and even Department of Defense regulations.

According to NPR, a department-wide email went out last week warning everyone in the DOD that a vulnerability was detected in the Signal messaging app, which Hegseth, along with several other administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance, used to discuss bombing Houthi targets in Yemen.

Specifically, the email stated that “Russian professional hacking groups are employing the ‘linked devices’ features to spy on encrypted conversations,” and noted that Google identified Russian hacking groups “targeting Signal Messenger to spy on persons of interest.”

As head of the DOD, Hegseth would have undoubtedly received that email. Even if he missed it, or habitually lets his work emails pile up, he should have known that using Signal for government business is an explicit violation of DOD regulations. This raises the question as to whether Hegseth and other officials were using Signal to avoid leaving records of their communications.

“Unmanaged ‘messaging apps,’ including any app with a chat feature, regardless of the primary function, are not authorized to access, transmit, process non-public DoD information. This includes but is not limited to messaging, gaming, and social media apps. (i.e., iMessage, WhatsApps, Signal),” a 2023 department memo states.

Will Hegseth, or any of the other senior government officials in the chat group, who include Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and national security adviser Mike Waltz, face any accountability for using Signal to conduct national security operations, let alone any government business? Aside from violating DOD regulations, the chat may likely have been illegal.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard absolutely—and accidentally—shredded Donald Trump’s phony reason for placing steep tariffs on Canada.

During a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing Tuesday, Gabbard presented the Annual Threat Assessment, or ATA, about the dangers state and nonstate actors pose to the United States. In her opening statement, Gabbard emphasized the presence of foreign cartels and illicit drug trafficking as the most dire threat to national security—but notably didn’t mention Canada at all.

Canada’s absence in the report presents a stark contradiction to the Trump administration’s insistence that drug trafficking across the northern border presents a major threat to Americans. Trump has cited this excuse as part of his rationale for levying 25 percent tariffs on Canadian exports.

Senator Martin Heinrich asked Gabbard to explain why she hadn’t mentioned Canada in her report.

“Is the [Intelligence Community] wrong in its omission of Canada as a source of illicit fentanyl in the ATA? I was surprised, given some of the rhetoric, that there is no mention of Canada in the ATA,” the New Mexico Democrat pressed.

“Senator, the focus in my opening and the ATA was really to focus on the most extreme threats in that area. And our assessment is that the most extreme threat related to fentanyl continues to come from and through Mexico,” Gabbard replied.

“So, the president has stated that the fentanyl coming through Canada is massive, and actually said it was an “unusual and extraordinary threat,” and that was the language that was used to justify putting tariffs on Canada,” Heinrich said. “I’m just trying to reconcile those two issues. Is it an “unusual and extraordinary threat,” or is it a minor threat that doesn’t even merit mention in the Annual Threat Assessment?”

Gabbard said she couldn’t speak to the “specifics” of the threat posed by Canadian fentanyl trafficking.

Heinrich assured her that it accounted for “less than 1 percent” of the fentanyl seized by the U.S. government. “But if you have different information, I would very much welcome that,” he said.

The Trump administration has repeatedly referred to a terrifying 2,000 percent increase in drug trafficking over the U.S.-Canada border in the last year. But the reality is much less thrilling.

In 2023, only two pounds of fentanyl were seized at the northern border, and a total of 43 pounds of fentanyl were seized in 2024, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. As one NBC News reporter pointed out, that’s still “less than a carry-on suitcase.”

Trump’s border czar just confirmed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is detaining innocent people.

Tom Homan was asked on Fox Business Tuesday morning about whether ICE would be providing the city of Boston with information regarding the 370 people it said it arrested over the last week in the city.

“Tom, will you share information with the mayor on those arrested?” the host asked Homan.

“We never hide anything. I can tell you that their city’s safer.… It’s safer now because [of the] actions of ICE.… We arrested 370 illegal aliens in Boston and the surrounding counties, not just Boston,” Homan said. “Majority of them were criminals. We had, you know, numerous collateral arrests. And I’ve said it before on this show and I’ll keep sayin’ it: Collateral arrests are gon’ be … people who aren’t criminals that are found when we’re lookin’ for the criminal are gonna be taken into custody.”

This is a significant admission that tracks well with the administration’s recent detainments: indiscriminate kidnappings and extraditions of hundreds of Latino men on shaky allegations of gang tattoos. Trump always knew his massive criminal deportation crackdown promises were overambitious, so he’s drawing innocent people into the crossfire as he alleges all of ICE’s targets are rapists and terrorists—unsubstantiated claims that none of the detainees can defend because they won’t get a day in court.

Time will only tell who starts to get classified as a “collateral arrest” going forward.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard refused Tuesday to admit to her involvement in a major national security scandal. 

Trump administration officials used a Signal chat to discuss sensitive details of a plan to bomb Houthis in Yemen earlier this month—and accidentally added The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, to join. 

Gabbard, who recently railed against leaks from the intelligence community, was reportedly one of the many high-ranking Cabinet officials in the group chat who lacked the basic due diligence to check the members of the group before spouting off about war plans.

During a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing Tuesday about global threats to the United States, Gabbard flatly refused to answer questions about her own role in threatening national security. 

“Director Gabbard, did you participate in the group chat with the secretary of defense and other Trump senior officials discussing the Yemen war plans?” Senator Mark Warner asked. 

Gabbard refused to answer. “Uh, Senator I don’t want to get into the specifics—” she replied, before being cut off by Warner. 

The Virginia Democrat continued to press Gabbard to answer. “You were not ‘TG’ on this group chat?” he asked, referring to the Signal screen name. Gabbard continued to insist she would not “get into specifics.”

“Why aren’t you gonna get into the specifics? Is this—is it because it’s all classified?” Warner asked.

“Because this is currently under review by the National Security Council,” Gabbard said. 

“Because it’s all classified? If it’s not classified, share the texts now,” Warner said. 

Warner then turned to CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who readily admitted to participating in the Signal group chat, claiming that its use was permitted under a Biden-era policy and insisted the platform was considered safe for use at the CIA, as long as the decisions made within the chat were recorded formally.  

Warner moved his attention back to Gabbard, asking whether she had requested a sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF, to discuss the strike plans. 

“There was no classified material that was shared in that Signal chat,” Gabbard said, suddenly more forthcoming. 

Her statement echoed that of White House, which claimed that not only were no classified materials shared but that no war plans were discussed. Much of the White House’s statement was false, and it also contradicted the National Security Council’s own prior statement confirming the legitimacy of the chat. 

“So, if there was no classified material, share it with the committee! You can’t have it both ways! These are important jobs! This is our national security,” Warner said. 

“Bobbing and weaving and trying to, you know, filibuster your answer—so please answer the question,” Warner said. “If this was a rank-and-file intelligence officer who did this kind of careless behavior, what would you do with them?”

“Senator, I’ll reiterate there was no classified material in that Signal—” Gabbard said, before being cut off. 

“And if there’s no classified materials, share! And then if there’s no classified materials, then answer—you can’t even answer the question whether you were on the chat,” Warner said, visibly frustrated.

He asked Gabbard what she planned to do if the information was, in fact, classified. She emphasized that there was a difference between the “inadvertent release” and “malicious leaks” of classified information, before restating that there was no classified material in the chat.