Oregon’s senior senator, Democrat Ron Wyden, was among the group of lawmakers who demanded answers Tuesday from Trump officials following the unintentional leak of bombing information to a national journalist.

In a committee room, the hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee unfolded in split-screen fashion: Republican senators hewed to the pre-scheduled topic by drilling down on China and the fentanyl scourge, while Democrat after Democrat offered sharp criticism over a security breach they called reckless and dangerous.

That breach was revealed in an article Monday by Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine. Goldberg reported that he was mistakenly added to a chat with top Trump officials, including Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Vice President JD Vance and others on the encrypted messaging app Signal.

The Atlantic reported that Hegseth and others discussed plans to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen on the chat, which the White House later confirmed.

Wyden called the actions of top officials reckless and dangerous.

“Both the mishandling of classified information and the deliberate destruction of federal records are potential crimes that ought to be investigated immediately,” Oregon’s senator said.

Gabbard and Ratcliffe, who delivered testimony Tuesday, told Wyden that the messages were not classified information, and that the use of Signal was approved for federal intelligence use as long as information was also documented in channels that are officially retained by the government. Signal’s encrypted messaging service allows users to automatically delete records after a set amount of time - a feature The Atlantic said was enabled in the sensitive group chat.

Wyden also used his time at the hearing to call for an audit of Trump officials’ communications to confirm other plans were not shared over phones that were not cleared for classified information. Gabbard and Ratcliffe said they would be willing to participate in further information gathering.

Different parties prioritized different issues

The annual hearing on worldwide threats before the Senate Intelligence Committee offered a glimpse of the new administration’s reorienting of priorities. It comes when President Donald Trump has opened a new line of communication with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, and has focused national security attention closer to home to counter violent crime that officials link to cross-border drug trafficking.

The Trump administration’s top intelligence officials stressed to Congress that the most pressing threat to the United States was posed by international criminal gangs, drug cartels and human smuggling.

“Criminal groups drive much of the unrest and lawlessness in the Western Hemisphere,” Gabbard said. Atop a long list of national security challenges, she cited the need to combat cartels that she said were “engaging in a wide array of illicit activity, from narcotics trafficking to money laundering to smuggling of illegal immigrants and human trafficking.”

The hearing occurred as officials across multiple presidential administrations describe an increasingly complicated blizzard of threats. Still, Democrats focused on the Signal leak.

“If this information had gotten out, American lives could have been lost,” Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the intelligence committee said of the exposed Signal messages. “An embarrassment,” said Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado, who shouted down Ratcliffe as he demanded answers.

Gabbard and other officials did note the U.S. government’s longstanding national security concerns, including international terrorism and the threat she said was posed by countries including Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.

China, for one, has heavily invested in stealth aircraft, hypersonic weapons and nuclear arms and is looking to outcompete the U.S. when it comes to artificial intelligence, while Russia remains a “formidable competitor” and still maintains a large nuclear arsenal.

“The direction for the FBI is to track down any individuals with any terrorist ties whatsoever, whether it be ISIS or another foreign terrorist organization,” said FBI Director Kash Patel. “And now to include the new designations of the cartels, down south and elsewhere.”

But the elevation of international drug trafficking as a top-tier threat was a notable turnabout in focus. Over the past four years, the U.S. government has been more likely to place a premium on concerns over sophisticated Chinese espionage plots, ransomware attacks that have crippled hospitals and international and domestic terrorism plots.

“Horrified” by the leak of what is historically strictly guarded information, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, said he will be demanding answers in a separate hearing Wednesday with his panel.

The two days of hearings also come against the backdrop of a starkly different approach toward Russia following years of Biden administration sanctions over its war against Ukraine.

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed during a lengthy call with President Donald Trump to an immediate pause in strikes against energy infrastructure in what the White House described as the first step in a “movement to peace.”

OPB’s Bryce Dole contributed to this story.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/03/25/trump-intel-officials-testify-on-threat-from-drug-cartels-as-dems-press-them-on-leak-of-attack-plans/