Exposure of war plans ‘mind-boggling’, top Democrat tells intelligence officials

The Trump administration’s top intelligence officials are facing Congress this week to offer their first evidence in office about the threats facing the US and tackle urgent questions about the security breach that unfolded when war plans were mistakenly leaked to a journalist.

At a hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Democratic senator Mark Warner of Virginia denounced what he called a pattern of “careless, incompetent behaviour” by the Trump administration with regard to the handling of sensitive information.

“Putting aside for a moment that classified information should never be discussed over an unclassified system, it’s also just mind-boggling” that no one thought to check the participants on the group chat, said Mr Warner, the panel’s top Democrat.

Tuesday’s hearing is taking place one day after news broke that several top national security officials in the Republican administration, including Mr Ratcliffe, Ms Gabbard and defence secretary Pete Hegseth, texted war plans for military strikes in Yemen to a group chat in a secure messaging app that included the editor-in-chief for The Atlantic.

The text chain “contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the US would be deploying, and attack sequencing,” Jeffrey Goldberg reported. The strikes began two hours after Mr Goldberg received the details.

“Horrified” by the leak of what is historically strictly guarded information, the top Democrat on the House intelligence panel, Jim Himes, said he will be demanding answers in Wednesday’s hearing.

The hearings are also unfolding against the backdrop of a starkly different approach towards 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”.