CIA Head Has Shocking Answer When Asked if Group Chat Was “Mistake”
CIA Director John Ratcliffe flailed Tuesday when asked one simple question about the Trump administration’s major national security scandal.
During a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Ratcliffe and other intelligence officials faced tough questions about a Signal chat Cabinet members used to discuss sensitive details of a plan to bomb Houthis in Yemen earlier this month—which accidentally included The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg.
Unlike the more reticent Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Ratcliffe dove straight off a sinking ship and readily admitted to participating in the group chat. He insisted that the CIA was permitted to use Signal.
But Ratcliffe crumbled when asked a straightforward question by Senator Jon Ossoff.
“Director Ratcliffe, this was a huge mistake, correct?” the Georgia Democrat asked.
There was a silence before Ratcliffe responded, shaking his head. “No,” he said.
There was another long silence in the chamber as Ratcliffe’s answer started to sink in. It seemed Ratcliffe wanted so badly not to be in trouble that, somehow, including a journalist in sensitive discussions of strike plans wasn’t even a mistake? At once, Ossoff continued, and Ratcliffe attempted to make sense of his unbelievably poor response.
“A national political rep—no, no you hold on,” Ossoff said, over Ratcliffe’s pleas of, “Hold on, let me answer!”
“No, no Director Ratcliffe, I asked a simple yes or no question, and now you hold on,” Ossoff said. “A national political reporter was made privy to sensitive information about imminent military operations against a foreign terrorist organization, and that wasn’t a huge mistake? That wasn’t a huge mistake?”
As Ossoff spoke, Ratcliffe continued to limply defend himself. “You can characterize it how you want,” Ratcliffe said of the “inadvertent mistake of adding a reporter.”
“I think that they characterized it as a mistake,” Ratcliffe finally said, defeated.
“This is an embarrassment. This is utterly unprofessional. There’s been no apology. There has been no recognition of the gravity of this error. And by the way, we will get the full transcript of this chain, and your testimony will be measured carefully against its content,” Ossoff said.
Ossoff: This was a huge a mistake correct?
— Acyn (@Acyn) March 25, 2025
Ratcliffe: No
Ossoff: This is an embarrassment. We will get the full transcript of this chain and your testimony will be measured carefully against its content pic.twitter.com/Ue0FdwT0bF
During Thursday’s hearing, Gabbard insisted that there had been no classified information sent in the group chat, though Goldberg reported that there had been information that, if “read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command’s area of responsibility.”