Sawt Falasteen - Trump, intel chiefs dismiss chat breach

Trump brushed off the leak as a "glitch," while the CIA director and the White House intelligence chief both claimed during a Senate hearing that no classified information was divulged in the conversation on the Signal messaging app.

The president also defended his National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who added Atlantic's magazine's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to the chat by mistake ahead of the airstrikes.

Trump told broadcaster NBC that the breach was "the only glitch in two months, and it turned out not to be a serious one." Waltz "has learned a lesson, and he's a good man," he added.

Trump's Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe -- who were both reported to be in the chat -- both endured a stormy Senate Intelligence Committee hearing over the leak.

"There was no classified material that was shared," Gabbard, who has previously caused controversy with comments sympathetic to Russia and Syria, told the committee.

She refused however to comment on whether Signal had been installed on her personal phone.

Ratcliffe confirmed he was involved in the Signal group and had the app installed on his work computer, but said the communications were "entirely permissible and lawful and did not include classified information."

- 'Sloppy, careless, incompetent' -

Democrats on the committee called on Waltz and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to resign.

Senator Mark Warner blasted what he called "sloppy, careless, incompetent behavior."

Journalist Goldberg said that Hegseth sent information in the Signal chat about the Yemen strikes including targets, weapons and timing ahead of the strikes on March 15.

He said he was added to the group chat two days before the Yemen strikes but did not publish sensitive information on the attacks.

Hegseth, a former Fox News host with no experience running a huge organization like the Pentagon, launched the fightback by saying that "nobody was texting war plans."

The White House then went into full damage control mode on Tuesday, attacking Goldberg and describing the story as a "coordinated effort" to distract from Trump's achievements.

"Don’t let enemies of America get away with these lies," White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said on X, describing the row as a "witch hunt."

Trump and his aides have repeatedly used the same term to dismiss an investigation into whether the Republican's 2016 election campaign colluded with Moscow.

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a post on X on Tuesday that "no 'war plans' were discussed" and "no classified material was sent to the thread."

She also attacked Goldberg as being "well-known for his sensationalist spin."

- 'European free-loading' -

But the report has sparked concerns over the use of a commercial app instead of secure government communications -- and about whether US adversaries may have been able to hack in.

Trump's special Ukraine and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff was in Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin when he was included in the group, CBS News reported.

The report also revealed potentially embarrassing details of what top White House officials think about key allies.

A person identified as Vance expressed doubts about carrying out the strikes, saying he hated "bailing Europe out again," as countries there were more affected by Huthi attacks on shipping than the United States.

Contributors identified as Hegseth and Waltz both sent messages arguing that only Washington had the capability to carry out the strikes, with the Pentagon chief saying he shared Vance's "loathing of European free-loading" and calling the Europeans "pathetic."

The Huthi rebels, who have controlled much of Yemen for more than a decade, are part of the "axis of resistance" of pro-Iran groups staunchly opposed to Israel and the United States.

They have launched scores of drone and missile attacks at ships passing Yemen in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden during the Gaza war, saying they were carried out in solidarity with Palestinians.

P.Tamimi--SF-PST