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One World with Zain Asher
CNN International: U.S. Intel Chiefs Back On Capitol Hill Amid Group Chat Fallout; Journalist Reveals "Attack Plans" Shared In War Group Chat; U.S. Intel Chiefs Testify Before House Cmte. Amid Group Fallout. Aired 11a- 12p ET
Aired March 26, 2025 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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BIANNA GOLODRYGA, HOST, "ONE WORLD": Hello, everyone. Live from New York, I'm Bianna Golodryga.
ZAIN ASHER, HOST, "ONE WORLD": And I'm Zain Asher. You are watching One World.
We're going to get back to Capitol Hill in just a moment to hear more from national security officials being grilled by the House Intelligence
Committee over a Signal group chat discussing U.S. strike plans in Yemen. CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi
Gabbard, are testifying. Today, lawmakers really do have a lot more information.
GOLODRYGA: That's right. A few hours ago, The Atlantic published new text messages it says are from the Signal group chat discussing U.S. strike
plans in Yemen, after one of its own journalists was inadvertently added to the discussion, and they provide an extraordinary amount of operational
detail, including the timing of strikes and weapons used.
Let's get to Juliette Kayyem, our National Security Correspondent here and Analyst. Juliette, just from everything that we've heard in the first few
minutes of the second day of hearings, yesterday, it was before the Senate, now before the House, from top national intelligence officials, from the
CIA Director to Tulsi Gabbard at DNI, what do you make of their responses in light of The Atlantic choosing to come out and publish the text from
that Signal chat, given that the White House and all of the principals involved in the conversation say that this was not highly secret or
priority information?
JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST, & FORMER OBAMA HOMELAND SECURITY OFFICIAL: Yes. I mean, the White House got stuck in the narrative
that these -- this was nothing special, and they didn't do anything wrong, except for putting Jeffrey Goldberg on it. Once they did that, it was sort
of incumbent on The Atlantic to release what, in fact, were the -- was the content of what was essentially troop deployment before, and troop activity
and military activity before it happened, and now stuck with that narrative that nothing special was going on, on the Signal chat exchange. You're
seeing that the White House doesn't -- honestly doesn't quite know what to do at this stage.
So, the head of the intelligence agencies and the head of the CIA are trying to make a straight face claim that this information wasn't that
special. And anyone who reads it, I've read both, what was released today and then, of course, earlier this week, it clearly is something that ought
not to have been for non-classified discussions.
ASHER: Juliette, just talk to us about the potential consequences, just really for our international audience to truly understand what was at stake
here, the fact that you have this kind of information being exchanged on an unsecure app 30 minutes or so before the strike ends up actually happening,
the Houthis could have really had time to prepare, and the consequences for American troops, American soldiers could have really been catastrophic if
this information had actually gotten into the wrong hands.
KAYYEM: That's exactly right, and that's the most important point, is it's just a sort of coincidence and in some ways lucky for the -- those on
Signal that it was Jeffrey Goldberg, one of the most responsible and well- known reporters here in the United States, was the added name.
But, you make the important point, and I don't want this to get lost, that this clearly is what the national security team for the White House is
doing, that they are on Signal on unsecure phones. So, even if you say, well, Signal is encrypted and we have confidence in it, even though there
are lots of lots of questions about that, it's the unsecured phone aspect of it that is becoming the focus, because then it means all sorts of things
are being discussed on the -- on networks that don't exist for this purpose.
There is an alternative universe that every other presidency has used, which is, you have secure devices, secure computers, what we call high-side
intelligence networks, and then rooms, the Situation Room, all sorts of rooms in which people can get together. So, that's where I think, let alone
the operational issues involved with if someone had been able to warn the Houthis, if Houthis have been able to get ready to combat back, if even
someone -- the Russians or the Chinese found out, all of that is bad, but what's worse is there is no confidence now in how the United States
conducts it national security, no confidence by allies, and certainly no confidence by enemies.
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I mean, if this is -- I'm just going to say for our international audiences, this is so absurd, so insane that this happened, and that the
White House is trying to sort of figure out a way to try to make it not insane. The rest of the world is laughing at us at best, but much of the
world also is going to take advantage of this, and that, for everyone, is the real headline.
GOLODRYGA: I mean, just the idea of Jeffrey Goldberg, who, as we note, is a responsible seasoned journalist who did not publish this information at the
time, the fact that he was sitting in a parking lot at a Safeway store, reading all of this, as it was published in real time, and we look at this
information that was published and put into this Signal chat by the Secretary of Defense over the course of three hours, really listing sort of
a TikTok of how this strike would happen and where it would happen, and the weapons used and the aircraft used in this strike, and that you have the
White House parsing words now, saying this wasn't a war plan, but an attack plan.
Is there any difference here in --
KAYYEM: Yes.
GOLODRYGA: -- terminology? And then, talk to us about this new tactic that they appear to be using, suggesting that the Defense Secretary can
unclassify (ph) -- or declassify any information at a whim.
KAYYEM: That's right, because they're stuck with the narrative, right? I mean, they are stuck with not -- with rather than fessing up and saying
this a mistake, and we're going to review it and get people back into the secure zone, this White House always sort of just goes on offense, rather
than thinking this was bad. I mean, at least Mike Waltz, the National Security Advisor, is admitting that.
So, as you said, look, I mean, this wasn't ground troops, and I'm willing to admit that. I don't want to get too like, oh, our troops were -- could
have been killed on the ground. I mean, this wasn't the raid of bin Laden. We know that. This was an Air Force. This was an air -- nonetheless, the
reason why you don't publish this stuff is because a lot of things could go wrong, including that the Houthis begin an offensive strike in time to make
it disruption. I think a lot -- I know a lot about this effort, and of course, the Suez, in terms of --
ASHER: All right. Juliette, stick around, because we're actually going to go back to the House Intelligence Committee and listen to their
intelligence chiefs testifying.
REP. RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI (D-IL): -- damage to the national security including military plans, weapons systems or operations. You don't disagree
that that's accurately quoted, right?
LT. GEN. JEFFREY KRUSE, DIRECTOR, U.S. DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY: That's an accurate quote from the executive order.
KRISHNAMOORTHI: And DoD 5200.01, this is the DoD's manual on classification, says, quote "Information shall be classified if it's
unauthorized disclosure, could reasonably be expected to cause describable damage to national security. This includes military plans, weapon systems
or operations". You don't disagree that I quoted that accurately, right?
KRUSE: That's also an accurate quote.
KRISHNAMOORTHI: Can I show you the -- I'd like to show you the text that Secretary Hegseth actually published to the world. Now, Lieutenant General
Kruse, as ranking member Himes said, it says, TIME NOW, Weather is FAVORABLE. Just CONFIRMED with CENTCOM. We are a GO for mission launch.
Then it says, at 12:15 Eastern, F-18 -- F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package). F-18s are military systems, correct? Weapons systems?
KRUSE: They are.
KRISHNAMOORTHI: OK. 13:45, "Trigger Based" F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ His Known Location SO SHOULD BE ON TIME - also,
Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s). MQ-9s is a weapons system, correct?
KRUSE: They are.
KRISHNAMOORTHI: OK. I think applying the executive order as well as the DoD manual to this fact pattern, we clearly have weapons systems that have been
identified, that is classified information. Now, the reason why it's important that this information not be disclosed is that we don't want the
adversaries to know what's about to happen. Right, sir?
KRUSE: Well, I would draw a small distinction there. You referenced and asked if that platform, those two platforms are weapons systems, they are,
but those terms are used all across the globe in a lot of context. So, it's really about how they're used in the context of this particular document. I
just want to clarify that the use of those --
KRISHNAMOORTHI: I understand.
KRUSE: Yeah.
KRISHNAMOORTHI: In this situation, those are operational details.
KRUSE: They are operational details. But again, as you quoted the DoD instruction, it's about operations. So, as you further go down into what
are the operational details, I think, as we had a discussion yesterday, the important aspect, I think all of us are very familiar --
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KRISHNAMOORTHI: This is classified information. This is classified information. It's a weapons system as well as sequence of strikes, as well
as details about the operations. And so, I think that just piggybacking off of what some other members have said, using the DoD's manual as well as the
executive order in operation today with the Trump administration, this text message is clearly classified information. Secretary Hegseth has disclosed
military plans as well as classified information. He needs to resign immediately. He needs to resign immediately, and a full investigation needs
to be undertaken with regard to whether other similar Signal chats are occurring in this administration.
I'd like to turn my attention to another topic. Director Patel, according to the DoJ, in 2022, the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in my
hometown of Chicago, valiantly led efforts to prevent a plot to attack Naval Station Great Lakes in Illinois. You don't dispute that. Do you, sir?
KASH PATEL, DIRECTOR, FBI: I'm not familiar with it, but I don't dispute what you're telling me.
KRISHNAMOORTHI: Thank you. A memo obtained by ABC7 News of Chicago said that this task force will now be, quote, "actively supporting" close quote,
the Department of Homeland Security and its immigration enforcement. You don't dispute that either. Do you?
PATEL: I'm just not familiar with it, sir.
KRISHNAMOORTHI: OK. Sir, I just have to say, the DoJ has now tasked JTTFs to shift some resources to immigration enforcement efforts. And I don't say
this lightly, if there is a terrorist attack anywhere in the country, including in Chicago, and it was because the JTTF's, in part, shifted
resources, they'll be held to pay. Thank you, sir.
REP. RICK CRAWFORD (R-AR): The gentlemen's time has expired. The Gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Scott.
REP. AUSTIN SCOTT (R-GA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director Gabbard, was the target terrorist named in the text was simply referred to as target
terrorist?
TULSI GABBARD, U.S. DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: The target was not named.
SCOTT: Thank you. Was the location named?
GABBARD: Congressman, no. No locations were named.
SCOTT: Thank you. Director Patel, there was a specific accusation made about how close we are working with Mexico currently. My understanding, and
I want to congratulate you on this, and I think it shows a shift of focus at the FBI since you've taken over to what it should have been doing all
along, which is chasing the 10 Most Wanted that are threatening our country. My understanding is that two of the three were actually arrested
in Mexico and are being extradited back to the United States. Is that correct?
PATEL: Yes, sir. We have been working -- in one of the first meetings I took as FBI Director was my counterpart, Secretary Harfuch (ph) in Mexico.
And subsequent to that, we have repaid or -- extradited or expelled from Mexico two top 10 of the FBI's s Most Wanted list, and 33 other criminals.
SCOTT: Well, it sounds to me like we're working closer with them today than we have in the last several years, and that the focus of the FBI has
shifted to actually protecting American citizens instead of arresting pro- life protesters.
PATEL: Our mission is to find violent criminals wherever they are, and if they're in Mexico, we're going to get them.
SCOTT: Thank you, and I appreciate you, and I appreciate the change in the focus of the FBI.
I want to talk with you a little bit about the counterintelligence threats, one of which was an active duty U.S. Army soldier charged with conspiring
to transmit national defense information to individuals located in China. What can you say in this setting? Or can you briefly explain your work with
interagency partners to identify and neutralize counterintelligence threats in the United States around this example?
PATEL: For me, sir?
SCOTT: Yes, sir.
PATEL: So, generally speaking, on counterintelligence and countering espionage, whether it's from adversaries like the CCP, Russia, Iran or
otherwise, we have prioritized them as an equally violent criminal enterprise seeking to do harm to our critical infrastructure and also to
exploit and steal our data, whether it's government or private personnel. And so, we have expanded our resources into them and working with the
interagency to make it a priority.
SCOTT: OK. Thank you. I want to move on to the issue of the threshold of parole under the previous administration and the number of illegal
immigrants that have come into this country, including people with known membership.
GOLODRYGA: We've been listening to a bit more of the Intel Committee hearing from the top intelligence officials in the U.S. It is day two.
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Yesterday, they briefed the Senate committee. Now they're briefing the House.
We will stay tuned and keep an eye on any developments out of this hearing. In the meantime, we will be right back with more.
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ASHER: All right. You have been watching CNN's s continuing coverage of the House Intelligence Committee hearing. We're going to go back to the hearing
in just a moment.
But first, I want to bring in CNN National Security Analyst Juliette Kayyem, who is joining us live now from Cambridge, Massachusetts. So,
before we get back to the hearing, Juliette, I do want to start by playing some sound for our audience from Shane Harris, the co-author of that
Atlantic piece. And he was asked by our correspondent or anchor, rather, Wolf Blitzer, about why it was important for The Atlantic to release the
second trove of text messages today. I want to play our audience what he said in response to that question, and then I'll talk to you on the other
side of it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHANE HARRIS, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: This, I think, came out of what administration officials were saying yesterday, and there are two really
salient points to that. One is that lots of officials, including the President, were saying this is unclassified. Well, if it's unclassified,
then our question was, why aren't you publishing the information? But also, they continue to insist that we were deceiving people and that we were not
portraying this information accurately, that we were not telling our readers the truth about what was in these text messages. So, for those two
reasons, we felt compelled to publish them in their entirety today.
There is one limited redaction in there. At the request of the CIA, we are not publishing the name of the CIA Director's Chief of Staff, because
ordinarily, intelligence officers are not identified publicly. Everything else, though, that you see at The Atlantic today is what was in that Signal
chain, up to the point where I should note Jeffrey Goldberg removed himself from that chain, which I think was a quite responsible thing to do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ASHER: So, Juliette, what do you make of the decision by The Atlantic to publish this additional information today? I mean, obviously, Shane Harris
essentially saying that the administration was not necessarily being honest in terms of blaming The Atlantic, saying they were deceiving people, also
talking about the fact that these weren't necessarily war plans, that this was unclassified information, and also how much the administration is
asking people to focus on the fact that the strikes were a success in Yemen and not all of this other stuff that is being revealed. Just give us your
take on that.
KAYYEM: Yeah. And I contribute frequently to the Atlantic.
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I knew nothing of this. That's how secretive they've kept it. Look, I mean, yesterday, the White House had a decision to make, which was, how were they
going to deal with this, this huge mistake that Mike Waltz made by adding Jeffrey Goldberg? He could have added anyone. And instead of, we're going
to have a review, we're going to do all the things that a responsible White House would do to learn from this, they went on attack. So, when you're on
attack with this White House, we all know, in the media, let alone anywhere, you don't -- you can't let them narrate the story. And so,
because of that, I think the decision was made, or at least as reflected by Shane and Jeff, to release these, which I think is right. They didn't harm
anyone. It's long gone.
The White House never likes process, right? This White House never likes process. But, the important part to remember is that process is
significant, not only for this mission, but for future ones. We are already reporting on other allies, not -- the CNN is, on not sharing intelligence
on growing distrust of the national security team, on concerns about senior members of the national security team being either duped or beholden to
Russia. This country -- this disaster, this mockery that we're seeing unfold now with the Signal issue is consistent with that story, right? I
mean, in other words, it's just sad, not satisfied, it is consistent with what we know about this White House and it will have an impact internally
at the Pentagon for our national security as well as how other nations relate to it.
GOLODRYGA: Yeah. We have no idea how many other similar conversations are being had --
KAYYEM: Yes.
GOLODRYGA: -- over Signal with other principals committees involving top secret and classified information as well.
We do want to go back to the House Intel Committee hearing. We're hearing from Democratic Congressman Jason Crow, who himself is a military veteran.
REP. JASON CROW (D-CO): Nobody is willing to come to us and say, this was wrong. This was a breach of security, and we won't do it again. It is
outrageous, and it is a leadership failure, and that's why Secretary Hegseth, who undoubtedly transmitted classified, sensitive operational
information via this chain, must resign immediately. There can be no fixes. There can be no corrections until there is accountability. And I'm calling
on the administration to move forward with accountability. I yield back.
CRAWFORD: The gentlemen yields. The gentlemen from Texas, Mr. Crenshaw.
REP. DAN CRENSHAW (R-TX): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for being here. Good to see many of you again, and thank you for enduring two long
days. I will note I always use fire emojis when I see terrorists getting killed.
I want to talk about cartels. This is a -- this is a subject that is near and dear to my heart. I've been investigating it thoroughly for the last
couple of years, and I'm glad to see that it's mentioned in all of your opening statements, mentioned at the very beginning of the threat
assessment. There is a lot to work on here. One of task force, we had a Cartel Task Force in Congress. One of our key findings was that there needs
to be a centralized, maybe call it authority, or maybe call it office, maybe call it cartel czar within the administration that actually
coordinates all the very different aspects of fighting this battle. Is anything like that been talked about? I will get to you, Ms. -- Director
Gabbard.
GABBARD: Thank you, Congressman. It's good to see you again. This is very much central to the conversations in planning and execution of the
President's focus on targeting the cartels and the threats that they pose to the American people. Homeland Security Task Forces are being set up that
include across the government integration.
I can speak from my standpoint, from the intelligence community, and our National Counterterrorism Center is leaning heavily forward into gathering
and consolidating and integrating the intelligence that comes from DEA and others who have been working this issue for a while to make it so that it
can be shared and integrated through the federal, state and local law enforcement equities, who are going after this problem.
CRENSHAW: Yeah. We'll talk a lot more about that exact thing in closed session, but at a higher level, our recommendation is there needs to be
someone at a much higher level that coordinates state, DoD, CIA, FBI, Homeland. It's a massive problem, one I'm already familiar with.
Director Patel, the FBI is tasked with working foreign corruption charges. In the past administration, the FBI told me this is -- they actually don't
focus on Mexico very much because -- now, to their defense, they say the reason is, is because they won't get anything out of, because they don't
have a cooperative government to work with.
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I think a lot has changed. Do I have your commitment that we will at least start following up on those? Because the judiciary system in Mexico is a
key component in our failures to address the cartels.
PATEL: You do, Congressman, and apologies for not getting back to you sooner.
CRENSHAW: You're good. Appreciate it. I also want to ask you, the FBI has disrupted an alarming number of terrorist attacks in the last year, last
two years. Great on the FBI for doing that. I don't think many Americans realize how good the FBI has been at this. But, this also gets to the
conversation earlier about FISA 702, one of the main arguments -- I tried to tell my -- I wanted to argue with my colleagues on this, was when you
have a warrant process for the query, what you will fail to do is connect the dots between the domestic and the international threat, and those
connections are there, as we see all the time. Would you agree with that, that we need to maintain that process in a responsible way, of course?
PATEL: I do, sir.
CRENSHAW: Appreciate that. Director Gabbard, in my remaining time, I want to ask you, because of my -- and this may go to our General Kruse as well,
because of my work on energy and commerce, we have an issue there with broadband spectrum auctions, and of course, this affects our intelligence
community in a very large way but -- and our DoD.
Getting right to the question here, how much, if any, spectrum can the DoD give up without having a significant effect on the administration's
prioritization of lethality and deterrence?
GABBARD: I'll defer to General Kruse, specific to DoD.
KRUSE: I certainly wouldn't want to speak for all of DoD, and I think the Committee is already in a fantastic conversation with the DoD on that
issue. But, broadly, what I would say is, DoD has laid out the portions of the spectrum that it believes for both operational capabilities and in
closed session. I am more than happy to walk you through from the intelligence portion and the mission that we do. There are two different
portions of the spectrum. We often talk about one, but not the other, and in closed session, I'd be more than happy to tell you why the other portion
of the spectrum is important in national security.
CRENSHAW: Sure, and the details are obviously classified, but we can talk about X and S spectrums and get a better idea for the public about --
because the public would benefit from telecom having the ability to use some of these, when we look at 5G networks, 6G networks. So, it's a
conversation that we need to have and a much longer time to do so, which I've --
GOLODRYGA: We've been listening to Republican Dan Crenshaw speaking there, asking questions of intel heads there at the House Intel Committee hearing
on the threat assessment to the United States. We will take a quick break and come back for more of the hearing in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GOLODRYGA: All right. You've been watching CNN's continuing coverage of the House Intelligence Committee hearing.
ASHER: Yeah. Top Trump officials are being questioned about those group chat text messages that were shared with the journalists regarding U.S.
military strikes on Houthis in Yemen. Just a short time ago, the Director of National Intelligence told lawmakers that sharing the info was a
mistake, but Tulsi Gabbard insists that none of the information that was shared was classified. That's certainly a point of contention here.
GOLODRYGA: Yeah. But, journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, who was in the chat, published most of the text messages a few hours ago, including what appear
to be specific operational details. Now, sources tell CNN, information disclosed in that chat was indeed highly classified. So, let's get back to
that hearing for more.
REP. AMI BERA (D-CA): What I say personally is always going to be considered Congressman Bera saying it.
General Haugh, I've appreciated working with you, and have a deep concern about our cyber vulnerabilities, and we will go into some of this in the
closed session. But, Salt Typhoon is something we take very seriously as well as Volt Typhoon and the compromises. Can you just briefly give us an
update of where we are with those two?
GEN. TIMOTHY HAUGH, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY: So, congressman, we share your concern in terms of the overall ensuring that we can protect the
critical infrastructure of the United States. The area that we have been deeply focused on is our ability to partner with industry. 99 percent of
our critical infrastructure is controlled by our industry. So, our ability to bring government information to be able to understand what threats look
like and the origin of those threats help inform how industry can defend that and also create the necessary equipment to ensure that we're secure.
That partnership continues to grow, and that's really one of our key priorities. And I'll be able to go in closed session into more detail about
the specific actions we've done together as an interagency with our industry teammates.
BERA: Great. Thank you and I yield back.
CRAWFORD: The gentleman yields. The gentleman from Pennsylvania, General Perry.
REP. SCOTT PERRY (R-PA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your attendance and your service to national security for
our country.
I'm going to start with Director Patel and then go to Director Gabbard. I'm concerned, like many Americans, about the wide-scale purchase of land, real
estate, etcetera, by the Chinese Communist Party or those sanctioned by the party in America, especially those lands proximate to sensitive military
sites or sensitive national security sites.
Director Patel, I think we can all understand that that could lead to the ease of nefarious activities of numerous sorts. What do you think should be
our posture or our policy from a national security standpoint regarding the purchases of these land and the ownership, occupation, utilization,
etcetera, by the Communist Party sanction use?
PATEL: Well, congressman, I appreciate the question, and I'm not going to shape foreign or national policy, but from the FBI perspective, if we had
federal statutes to enact criminal allegations and pursue those relating to these matters, we would do so. I agree with you that having CCP actors
purchasing large swaths of land next to military installations is a national security issue, a major one, and I would highlight to the American
public, we're not allowed to buy farmland in mainland China or in Russia. So, I don't know why we let that happen here, but that's a personal matter
for me. If I were given more legislation on it, I would love to act on it.
PERRY: Thank you.
Director Gabbard, I'm going to look at, keeping with the same theme, crypto mining by the sanction -- well, you can't crypto mine in China, right? It's
outlawed in China. However, of course, we're supportive of crypto, I am, in the United States of America, but China's mining in America, where they
can't mine in China, and in particular, I'm thinking about one site where the mining was occurring close to intercontinental ballistic missiles, and
CFIUS was tipped off by Microsoft.
[11:35:00]
And of course, there are actions ongoing. Should the Chinese Communist Party sanctioned individuals or interests be allowed to crypto mine near
sensitive military or national security sites in the United States of America? And if not, what should we be doing about it?
GABBARD: Thank you for your question, congressman. I'm not fully aware and up to date on the specific example that you've mentioned, and I'll go and
look into that and --
PERRY: Happy to provide?
GABBARD: -- get back to you further. Absolutely. Look forward to having the conversation with you. Broadly, this is obviously a concern that any of
these activities occurring near or around any of our military sites creates that potential national security risk and the potential for foreign
intelligence collection.
PERRY: I'm hoping it's a priority for everybody on the dais there. It is a priority, I think, for the American people, certainly for me.
I want to move on in the time remaining with a related topic, which is the hundreds of incidents by predominantly Chinese students, oftentimes called
gate-crashers. So, this includes the two gentlemen in uniform on the dais. I'm going to kind of point to three events that happened just last year,
one in Grayling, Michigan. Five Chinese students are charged for lying and concealing evidence, one in the University of Minnesota, where a drone flew
over Newport News and took pictures of classified information regarding ships and classified systems, and then one at the University of Florida,
regarding the illicit acquisition and shipment of toxins, biomedical drugs and research supplies to China.
In these cases, or most of these cases, we encounter these people, and then we release these people. As a matter of fact, in the case of Florida,
apparently, she found out that criminal charges were being prepared, and she dropped out of school and their whereabouts remain unknown at this
point. What should be our posture? Because we're trying to follow up after the fact. We're encountering these people, whether they're gate-crashers or
whether we catch them conducting this illicit activity, we try and prosecute. That takes a lot of man hours, as you know, Director Patel.
Is this the best policy, or is there something better that we can do? I mean, the Immigration and National Act -- Nationality Act of 1952 gives the
Secretary of State the authority to revoke visas. But, should these people be allowed to come to this country in the first place, is the question of,
what should our posture be? Anybody.
PATEL: In terms of the visa issue, I know that the administration is working on a policy, but to directly answer your question, anybody who
utilizes the student visa program to come to this country to conduct criminal activity should never be allowed in this country. And anyone
that's doing it here in the United States of America, from an FBI standpoint, will be vigorously investigated and will use the expulsion or
criminal process on them.
PERRY: I yield, Mr. Chairman.
CRAWFORD: The gentlemen yields. Ms. Plaskett.
REP. STACEY PLASKETT (D-VI): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and good morning to the witnesses. First, let me say that we do have to, in this
Committee, try as much as possible to remain nonpartisan as opposed to bipartisan. I can recall being that way when I was counsel on the House
Ethics Committee, and it's a really hard -- it's a hard position to take.
But, I'm really struck by the fact that in December of 2023, many people made Secretary Lloyd Austin go through the stages of the cross in self-
flagellation and mea culpas for not informing the President that he was having a surgery, and now how we're treating Secretary Hegseth as if he is
untouchable. Mike Waltz, when he was a member of Congress, went in the Committee on Armed Services to talk of it and slammed Austin for holding
himself to a different standard than the American people. And yet, we are not doing this across the board, and that's disappointing, at the very
least, very disappointing.
Director Gabbard, thank you for your testimony. And one of the things that I believe I heard you say was that when there was a discussion by DOGE as
to the cuts to foreign aid, that there had not been a request for a national -- for an intelligence and national security or an intelligence
assessment of the impact of those cuts.
[11:40:00]
Is that -- was that your testimony a little earlier?
GABBARD: Congresswoman, I have not seen any kind of assess -- actual official assessment, either within the intelligence community or outside of
it, on what the effects of those cuts to USAID programs has been.
PLASKETT: But, it was not requested by DOGE of you or of any of the areas in which you have oversight over?
GABBARD: I'm not aware of any requests.
PLASKETT: OK. Great. Thank you.
I know that there has been some open source reporting on what the effect of those cuts are. I mean, when we think about several examples, Kenya, our
strongest regional ally in the Horn of Africa, and a key partner with us in the fight against terrorist group Al-Shabaab. And according to The
Washington Post, that's not definitive, and we can talk about this in closed session. Some Kenyan journalists are now being trained by Beijing,
mirroring the U.S. programs that have been cut by the administration.
Director Gabbard, is letting China train Kenyan journalists going to make Kenya more or less receptive to American requests of the Kenyan government,
do you believe?
GABBARD: As you said, congresswoman, our relationship with Kenya has been very long-standing and --
PLASKETT: So, do cuts of ours to train journalists in Kenya make them more or less, and Beijing having that the more or less receptive?
GABBARD: Clearly, there is strategic competition taking place. I'll withhold my personal view to look at an official assessment.
PLASKETT: Well, I was asking for your director view, not your personal view. And then, additionally, we have ended Voice of America, which
provided accurate, unbiased news, in our opinion. Meanwhile, St. Petersburg University has announced that it has Russian language centers across Africa
that pay special attention to the promotion of traditional Russian spiritual and moral values. Director Gabbard, is Russia a friend or a foe?
Is -- are they our friend or our adversary?
GABBARD: They're an adversary.
PLASKETT: Thank you. I believe that this reckless cuts make terrorism and our influence in Africa, which is on the frontlines of terrorism, a real
threat to us, and we need to be careful of it.
Director Patel, one of the benefits of being here, kind of in the middle, is I get to hear other people's testimony and the questions that are asked.
I know that Mr. Carson asked you questions specifically about the Counterterrorism Division, and we know that there has been some open source
reporting that says that individuals within that division have been removed or been moved, not necessarily fired, but moved. Do you know if that is
correct?
PATEL: I don't have any personal information on that, but people within the CTD component, which is a large component of the FBI, move all the time.
PLASKETT: And have they been moved? Is -- are you able to get that information to us whether they have or have not been moved?
PATEL: I'll go back to my team and see who has been moved. If you have a particular interest, we'll share with you.
PLASKETT: Of course we have an interest in Counterterrorism Division and movement of individuals within that because one of the other things I'm
concerned about is --
ASHER: All right. Clearly, a whole host of topics being covered here at the U.S. House Intelligence Committee. But, the main theme is, of course, the
fallout, the continued fallout for the potentially either sensitive or perhaps classified information that was released over Signal, and the fact
that Mike Waltz advertently included a journalist during those text message exchanges.
We'll be right back after this short break, and on the other side of the break, we'll have more from this hearing.
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[11:45:00]
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GOLODRYGA: We spent much of the last hour, a couple of hours actually, listening to Trump national security officials testifying before the House
Intelligence Committee.
CNN Cybersecurity Reporter Sean Lyngaas has been listening from Washington as well. And Sean, we've spent the last few days using a term Signal app
that maybe some of our viewers are not that familiar with. Talk to us specifically about why this has turned into such a scandal, the use of this
encrypted app, which for us, journalists or people who don't have high classification in the government, we use quite safely and securely. But,
why this has become such a scandal as it relates to top classified intelligence used by top principles?
SEAN LYNGAAS, CNN CYBERSECURITY REPORTER: Right. Yeah. As a long time Signal user myself, it's kind of interesting to see the app in the center
of the news. I mean, look, any commercial messaging app that you download, WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage, is not built for sharing classified information
as defined by the U.S. government. There are official channels for that. There is entire an infrastructure built in the White House, secure phones
and SCIFs for, SCIF being a sensitive compartmentalized information facility to share that information.
So, while Signal is a good and an encrypted app that is commonly used and its coding is open source, meaning cybersecurity experts can validate that
it's sound solid coding, it's not something that, in general, you want to share sensitive military details on, and that's something that's drilled
into anyone with a security clearance. Those are facts. So, that is why there is such outrage in certain parts of Washington over the fact that
this information was divulged on Signal. Many government officials use Signal, but to my knowledge, not for sharing classified information. And
there is a whole apparatus and training built around that.
Now, the administration, the Trump administration, is arguing that Secretary Hegseth, the Defense Secretary, can declassify information on his
own, but CNN reported this morning that from a -- citing a U.S. defense official, that that information that he shared in that chat, according to
what The Atlantic published, would be de facto classified because the attack had not happened yet and it was sensitive information on targets.
And we also reported that if someone in uniform had shared that information, according to our sources, they would be court martialed.
So, those are the facts around this saga, and we'll see how it continues to play out here as the hearing goes on.
GOLODRYGA: Yeah, and the point has been made that even if the information was unclassified, the fact that it was not revealed on a secure apparatus
or in a secure setting could also be violation of the law as well.
Sean Lyngaas, thank you so much.
ASHER: All right. Let's bring in Brett Bruen. He was a Senior International Security Advisor in Barack Obama's White House, and is the President of the
Global Situation Room, a communications consulting firm.
Brett, thank you so much for being with us. I just want to jump on just in terms of what Sean Lyngaas, our correspondent, there, and Bianna, my
colleague, were talking about, this idea of whether or not this information was classified. We heard Tulsi Gabbard talk about the fact that this was
not classified, that no classified information was shared. And obviously, we understand that Pete Hegseth, as Secretary of Defense, has the ability
and the power to retroactively declassify information.
[11:50:00]
But, what Sean was essentially saying is that, given the fact that the attack hadn't even happened yet, this information would have been
classified by default. Give us your take on that.
BRETT BRUEN, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL OFFICIAL IN OBAMA WHITE HOUSE: Yeah, and there are very clear guidelines about what information gets classified
at what level. And I think it's really important. In fact, it's illuminating that during Director Gabbard's exchange, she was asked,
military operations, imminent military operations, are those classified, and at what level are they classified? And she didn't know the answer. The
correct answer is top secret, and that is at the very top, as the name suggests, of the kind of sensitive, the kind of secretive information the
U.S. government has.
And as somebody who worked on the National Security Council, I can tell you, for much more minor things, we go through a whole lot of levels of
protection. And it's not just the notion of the information was shared on a commercial chatting app. It's the fact that you have Secretary Rubio,
Secretary Hegseth, Steve Witkoff, running around Moscow, where Russian intelligence is undoubtedly surveilling him, and they're on their personal
devices they can be observed, which is the whole reason. When we talk about something like a SCIF, you have to go through so many levels of security
just to get in there, and you're not allowed to take any phones, government or personal ones.
GOLODRYGA: Yeah, and it's interesting because Steve Witkoff reported today or posted on X in response to these claims that he was in Russia at the
time and on a personal phone, saying that, in fact, he was using his government-authorized device while he was in Russia, and that he did not
respond until he was back in the States.
But, Brett, the odds of even a government-issued device being compromised are not zero, and given that, aside from Jeffrey Goldberg having been
added, let's say he hadn't been, what was the vulnerability, given that this conversation was being had between the principles over Signal at the
time?
BRUEN: Yeah. It is not zero. In fact, I know that very well, because the Russians hacked our unclassified system at the White House. The Chinese
broke into the Office of Personal Management, got access to all of the data, and Signal, even if it was authorized on unclassified official
government phones, still was vulnerable, and it was vulnerable because, as unfortunately, the National Security Advisor dumbly demonstrated, you can
add anyone else to that chat and the whole notion of classified information, the reason why we go through all of those steps to protect the
information is so that there is no possibility of inadvertently or advertently adding somebody who does not have a need to know.
We're not even talking about the Editor in Chief of The Atlantic magazine, just somebody within the government who doesn't have a need to know. That's
why we only have these conversations in secure places and with no phones, no personal electronics around. And just one more illustration, I can't
even take a classified document out of the SCIF in the White House without fixing a cover page to it, and then I put it into a briefcase, I put a lock
on that briefcase, and I'm walking around the White House with that.
ASHER: I just want to let you know, Brett, that Pete Hegseth actually just posted a statement to X, defending his actions and essentially accusing The
Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg of peddling hoaxes. It includes some salty language, but the part we can say is, so, let me get this straight. The
Atlantic released so-called war plans, and those plans include no names, no targets, no locations, no units, no roots, no sources, no methods and no
classified information. This only proves one thing. This is, according to Pete Hegseth, that Jeff Goldberg has never seen a war plan or an attack
plan in his life, not even close.
But, when you think about what was released by Jeffrey Goldberg, Pete Hegseth essentially said in Signal team update, Weather is FAVORABLE. Just
CONFIRMED with CENTCOM that we are a GO for mission launch. F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package). Trigger-based, F-18 (1st strike window starting.
Doesn't this sound like war plans to you?
BRUEN: Well, and Secretary Hegseth is traveling overseas. So, perhaps he is tuned in at the moment. Let me say directly to him, I have seen war plans.
I spent a year embedded with a light infantry army, combat brigade in Iraq as a diplomat. This is exactly what a war plan looks like. And so, the
notion that Secretary Hegseth is dismissing, is downplaying the severity of this situation, does not consider the fact that the timing when U.S.
assets, when U.S. service members, are going to be flying over hostile territory to be sensitive secret information, is in and of itself really,
really concerning, is in and of itself disqualifying to be Secretary of Defense.
[11:55:00]
And look, I served under both Republican and Democratic administration. I was privileged to serve on the National Security Council with President
Obama, but I was also the first guy to come out when Jake Sullivan, in the reckless retreat from Afghanistan, put American diplomats, American
servicemembers at risk, and I said, Sullivan needs to resign or be fired.
GOLODRYGA: Yeah.
BRUEN: In this case, Secretary Hegseth and National Security Advisor Waltz both need to resign.
GOLODRYGA: Brett Bruen, we'll have to leave it there. Thank you so much for joining us this hour. We do appreciate it.
And that does it for this hour of One World. We will be back in an hour. So, stay with us for more of our show.
ASHER: Yeah. We're going to take a quick break, and then we'll have a special edition of Amanpour on the other side of it. Don't go away.
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END
