Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) on Sunday accused Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe of lying to Congress about the significance of the messages exchanged by senior Trump administration officials in a Signal group chat focused on military strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.
The Trump administration has come under intense scrutiny after Atlantic Editor-In-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg reported he was inadvertently added to the text thread in which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared an operational update, including precise timings about when the U.S. warplanes would launch and strike the Houthis.
In an interview with NBC’s “Meet The Press,” Bennet said Gabbard and Ratcliffe “lied repeatedly” both to the Senate Intelligence Committee and the House panel when they said no classified information was shared in that chat.
“I think the American people know this,” Bennet said. “If this material was not classified, literally nothing that I’ve ever heard as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee over all these years is classified. I wish I could say that we have deep, dark secrets that are even more classified than this, but it’s not true.”
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, echoed Bennet, telling ABC’s “This Week” “there’s no question” that the group chat included classified information.
Bennet added that the reason the story has resonated with the public is that Americans realize the information contained was sensitive despite the intelligence chiefs’ claims, arguing that Gabbard and Ratcliffe should be forced out of their positions.
“We need, you know, the top members of our intelligence community to be nonpartisan. We need them to tell the truth to the American people,” he added.
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President Donald Trump has insisted no one will lose their job over the scandal.
“I don’t fire people because of fake news and because of witch hunts,” he told NBC News.