THE Trump administration’s top intelligence officials face Congress for back-to-back hearings this week to testify about the threats facing the United States and what the government is doing to counter them.
The hearing comes a day after The Atlantic magazine journalist Jeffrey Goldberg reported that some of the most senior government figures — including Vice-President JD Vance — texted plans for upcoming military strikes in Yemen to a group chat that included the magazine’s editor-in-chief in a secure messaging app.
Mr Goldberg’s account of being added to a Signal group chat of US leaders co-ordinating plans for air strikes has raised questions about how sensitive information is supposed to be handled.
The strikes concerned killed 53 people.
The National Security Council (NSC) has since said that the text chain “appears to be authentic” and that it is looking into how a journalist’s number was added to the chain.
Those on the chat included Mr Vance, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence.
Mr Goldberg said that he had received the Signal invitation from Mike Waltz, President Trump’s national security adviser, who was also in the group chat.
In a social media post, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that “war plans” were not discussed and that no classified material was sent to the thread.
Ms Leavitt reiterated that the NSC is looking into how a telephone number for Mr Goldberg was added to the thread.
She said that US military strikes against Houthi forces in Yemen were successful, “terrorists were killed and that’s what matters most to President Trump.”
In an attempt to pour cold water over the affair, Republican Senate intelligence committee chairman Tom Cotton told Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends that he’d like to keep the focus on the subject for the hearing, which is threats facing the US and what the government is doing to counter them.