Intel Hearing On Group Chat, Return To Office Mandate, Black Sea Deal
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What is the security breach involving Trump's intelligence officials?
Trump's intelligence officials got a grilling on Capitol Hill over sensitive war plans shared in a group chat.
It's hard for me to believe that targets and timing and weapons would not have been classified.
Will Democrats get the investigation they want? I'm Michelle Martin here with Leila Fadal, and this is Up First from NPR News.
Federal workers are being ordered back to the office, but when they get there, they're finding there aren't enough chairs, desks, or toilet paper. How did one employee get told to report to work at a storage unit?
And the U.S. brokered a deal between Russia and Ukraine to allow safe passage through the Black Sea, but Moscow wants sanctions relief first.
There are about five or six conditions.
We're looking at all of them. Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day. The Trump administration is in damage control mode after the revelation this week that top national security officials shared secret war plans in a group chat that included a journalist. President Trump was asked about it yesterday.
We pretty much looked into it. It's pretty simple, to be honest. It's just something that can happen.
What are the implications of the group chat revelations?
CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard were both part of that group chat, and they appeared before Senate lawmakers yesterday for a previously scheduled hearing where they faced tough questions about how this security breach could have happened.
NPR Justice Correspondent Ryan Lucas is covering this, and he's with us now with more. Good morning, Ryan.
Good morning.
So Democrats really pushed Gabbard and Ratcliffe on this group chat revelation yesterday. Just remind us, what are the security concerns here?
Well, there are a couple of issues here. First off, this group chat reportedly involved sensitive strategy discussions among top US officials, including the vice president. And it also reportedly involved discussions about targeting, about weapons and attack sequencing of US military strikes in Yemen before those airstrikes happened. These discussions weren't on a secure US government communication system. They Instead, we're in a group chat set up by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz on the Signal messaging app, which is commercially available, widely used by all sorts of folks. Our colleague Tom Bowman is reporting that the Pentagon warned actually just last week against using Signal even for unclassified information.
The Pentagon said Russian hackers are targeting the app to spy on people of interest. So that's issue number one. Issue number two here is that a journalist, the editor of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, was included in this group chat. And that, of course, is a serious security breach.
So what did the director of national intelligence and the CIA director have to say about this yesterday when they appeared before lawmakers?
Well, initially, Tulsi Gabbard wouldn't even acknowledge that she was in the chat. For his part, though, CIA Director John Ratcliffe didn't try to play that game. He said straight out he was part of this chat. But he did say U.S. officials are permitted to use Signal to communicate and coordinate for government work purposes. He and Gabbard said there was no classified information shared in this chat. The White House has said the same thing. But that line received a lot of skepticism from lawmakers on the panel. And that includes Maine Independent Angus King.
If that's the case, please release that whole text stream so that the public can have a view of what actually transpired on this discussion. It's hard for me to believe that targets and timing and weapons would not have been classified.
Now, Ratcliffe and Gabbard both said at one point that the information from an intelligence perspective wasn't classified. But then when it comes to specific military information about the airstrikes, they said the Secretary of Defense has the authority to determine what's classified and what's not on that. So pointing to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for answers on those questions.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the security breach involving Trump's intelligence officials?
0:02–1:13
2
What are the implications of the group chat revelations?
1:13–3:47
3
How are federal workers affected by the return to office mandate?
3:47–5:21
4
What challenges are federal employees facing upon returning to office?
5:21
5
What is the Black Sea deal brokered by the U.S.?
0:40–12:27
Speakers
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