GOP lawmaker says Signal chat information being considered unclassified is ‘surprising’
Republican Rep. Mike Turner (Ohio), former chair of the House Intelligence panel, said it’s “surprising” that the Trump administration is considering the information leaked in a Signal group chat about plans to attack the Houthi rebels is considered "not a big deal."
Turner joined ABC News’s “This Week” on Sunday, where he was asked about the messages Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sent to the group. Hegseth originally said no war plans were discussed in the group, but The Atlantic later revealed the secretary shared information about the location, time and weapons planned for the attack.
“Clearly the subject matter that’s being discussed, the status of ongoing military operations, should be … considered classified information,” Turner said. “And it’s surprising to find it in an unclassified manner. To find it in this way is surprising.”
Turner, like other Republicans, argued that The Atlantic’s choice of calling the messages “war plans” or “attack plans” was inaccurate.
“They weren’t really attack plans,” he said. “They were on discussions of ongoing military operations.”
Turner argued that the editor-in-chief, Jeffery Goldberg, oversold the exchange and lost “some credibility.”
“The White House has said that there was no classified information being discussed,” he continued. “And I think it is surprising people are struggling with the information that’s there because this information really has at its roots classified information.”
He said that he believes the White House is “being legalistic” about its response to the incident and noted the people involved in the group chat have the ability to declassify information.
Turner noted that there will likely be an investigation from the inspector general, and it should be examined if the messages were classified when Hegseth sent them and whether that information should even be discussed via Signal.
“I do think that it is a platform that can be compromised and perhaps these types of discussions should not be used,” he said of Signal.