During a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard claimed no classified information was leaked to the editor of The Atlantic — who was accidentally invited to a chat on the social media app Signal regarding the U.S. plan to bomb the rebel group Houthis in Yemen.
However, when grilled by Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), Gabbard refused to say if she was part of the supposed non-classified chat and refused to release text of the chat.
Warner noted that the chat “was not only sloppy, not only violated all procedures, but if this information had gotten out, American lives could have been lost.”
“I’m not going to get into the specifics,” Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard responded.
“So you refuse to acknowledge whether you were on this group chat?” Warner pressed. “Is it because it’s all classified? Because this is currently under review by the National Security because it’s all classified.”
“If it’s not classified, share the text now,” the senator demanded, but Gabbard refused to answer…
“Did you contact the defense secretary or others after this specific military planning was put out and say, hey, we should be doing this in a SCIF?” Warner asked Gabbard.
“There was no classified material that was shared in that Signal,” the DNI said.
“So then if there was no classified material, share it with the committee,” Warner told a silent Gabbard. “You can’t have it both ways.”
“Senator, I’ll reiterate that there was no classified material that was shared in that,” Gabbard again repeated.
“Ma’am, if there’s no classified materials, share,” Warner advised. “And then if there’s no classified materials, then answer — you can’t even answer the question whether you were on the chat.”
(Sources: The Atlantic, Rumble)