March 25, 2025 - Bannon's War Room
54:27
Participants
| 
| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
In which classified information was shared using phones that weren't cleared for such information. | |
| Question for the two of you. | ||
| Senator, thank you for the question. | ||
| Your question was, have I participated in any other group chats sharing classified information? | ||
| To be clear, I haven't participated in any signal group messaging that relates to any classified information at all. | ||
| Okay. Director Gabbard. | ||
| Senator, I have the same answer. | ||
| I have not participated in any signal group chat or any other chat on another app that contained any classified information. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, and I just think it's important to follow through here. | |
| Would the two of you cooperate with an audit to confirm that that is the case? | ||
| I have no objection. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Senator, I'll certainly comply with any follow-up that the National Security Council would deem appropriate. | |
| But again, to be clear, The use of signal message end to end encryption applications is permissible. | ||
| And was, in this case, used permissibly, at least to my understanding, and in a lawful manner. | ||
| The seriousness of this is so clear. | ||
| That's why I want to have an audit, and both of you gave me an answer indicating that you would be open to that, and I appreciate it. | ||
| Director Patel, you weren't in this particular group chat, but have you participated in any chats on unclassified phones with other administration officials relating to national security? | ||
| And if so, on what other topics? | ||
| Thank you for your question, Senator, and not that I can recall. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. Question I have for you, Director Gabbard, involves this question of Elon Musk wasn't going to see the military's China war plans because he said he, quote, has business in China and he would be susceptible perhaps to that. | |
| That was his comment. | ||
| So as DNI, you're responsible for security clearance policies across the government. | ||
| Under your watch... | ||
| How are you going to go about carrying out this obligation? | ||
| Because I think it obviously is a very significant one in terms of American national security. | ||
| Thank you, Senator. | ||
| As you know, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence provides oversight over these different 18 intelligence elements. | ||
| Leaders within those elements are empowered with that responsibility to uphold the trust that the American people have placed in them. | ||
| In this example that you cited, both Secretary Hegseth as well as President Trump completely denied the assertion that Elon Musk was going to receive any kind of classified war plan brief pertaining to China or any other country. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So on the question of whether... | |
| The president has the prerogative to get clearances is really the area that I want to touch on because you're formally responsible for security clearance policies, and that's why I'm asking about it. | ||
| So can a president decide who gets the clearance? | ||
| Yes. So what about your role? | ||
| You're formally responsible for security clearance policies. | ||
| That is also true. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So how do we resolve it? | |
| The president just gets his way. | ||
| The elected president and commander in chief has the authority to provide a security clearance to those who he deems necessary. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Chairman, and to the ranking member, I think we have to have a further discussion on this and figure out what the ground rules are. | |
| I think it's clear what the director says. | ||
| I just think we need more clarity because I think you have the formal responsibility for security clearances, and now we've heard that this somehow is going to be the president's project, and I think we ought to have further discussions. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Senator Langford. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, thank you. | ||
| Thank you to all of you and your service to the country. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It matters. | |
| There are a lot of citizens of our country right now that have... | ||
| I'll be blunt. | ||
| After all Lankford's lies regarding the ridiculous bill he put forward on immigration, which we know Jack Posobiec was a total and complete lie because President Trump secured the border in 40 days. | ||
| Right there, Jack. | ||
| So help me out here. | ||
| Tulsi Gabbard starts by taking a hard line, a line that I believe is absolutely appropriate. | ||
| This is for the commander-in-chief and the president to kind of figure, the commander-in-chief, President Trump, to figure this out. | ||
| These cheap shots taken by guys like Warner and Wyden, the senator from Oregon. | ||
| You know, they can ask questions, but it doesn't mean you have to sit there, particularly if you're, and we already know, I think the White House counsel or others has been reported so far today are looking into this. | ||
| And Tulsi says at the beginning that they're looking into this, and she has nothing further to say. | ||
| I don't know why they're going back and forth and actually now starting to answer questions. | ||
| Maybe I'm missing it, but I think that breaks the hard line. | ||
| You take a hard line, you dig in and take a hard line. | ||
| Am I wrong in that, Jack Pasovic? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, look, you can do that. | |
| You can even respond in various ways, and I understand they're doing so in terms of their representatives of the national security team as well as the highest intelligence officers in the country. | ||
| But, you know, I also remember, by the way, when Mark Werner was leaking the details of the dossier investigation back in 2017 to Russian oligarchs. | ||
| Oleg Deripaska. | ||
| I remember when he was running around doing that. | ||
| I remember when this guy was totally fine with the Chinese going and buying all the Venezuelan oil, which was helping Maduro and helping him to be able to block President Trump's migrant flights that are going on right now and all the insanity. | ||
| So there's plenty of ways that we can point out that Warner has done the same thing. | ||
| But at the end of the day, look. | ||
| At the end of the day, it's simple. | ||
| You take the hard line, you maintain the hard line. | ||
| This is already under investigation. | ||
| You don't need to submit to an audit because there already is an audit. | ||
| The audit's already coming down. | ||
| It's from the top down, the National Security Council level, and from the White House Council. | ||
| And you don't need to tell Wyden and these guys. | ||
| And Wyden started off, we were coming at a commercial break, and I really want to thank Real America's Voice for cutting the break and going right to Wyden when he started talking. | ||
| Wyden, I think, started his comments with saying, hey, he's calling for the... | ||
| Resignation of the National Security Advisor. | ||
| The Democrats, they're not here to help. | ||
| They're not here to assist the nation. | ||
| They're here, once again, you have the judicial insurrection and you have now the deep state in the intelligence community. | ||
| They're loving this. | ||
| They're loving this because their two biggest weapons are not their political weapon. | ||
| They're kind of feckless, as you know, on the political side. | ||
| They have the courts and they have the deep state. | ||
| And now they're going to put President Trump under a pincer roof. | ||
| As we've been talking, Jack, over at the, both coming out of the House conference and Jim Jordan are both saying, Scalise and Jim Jordan are talking about, actually in the appropriations, dramatically cutting, and Johnson, Speaker Johnson came up too, dramatically cutting the courts. | ||
| In fact, they're talking about cutting out maybe one entire district of the federal court system for just cut off the funding. | ||
| My point, they're playing hardball. | ||
| Right? They've called for, I think, a hearing this week. | ||
| There are a couple of judges up there, not on impeachment, but to maybe start the process and hear from some of these judges. | ||
| They're talking about cutting the budget. | ||
| So on the judicial side, and President Trump threw down last night, can you explain the state secrets, what Pam Bondi and the White House did last night about this one judge? | ||
| And we will go back as soon as we get another cheap shot question here. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Steve, the concept is simple. | |
| The concept is that these state secrets were put out in open court. | ||
| And when you put out something in open court, It makes it a public document. | ||
| It is accessible. | ||
| You don't even need to avoid it. | ||
| It is already public. | ||
| That's the whole point of the court system, is that it's supposed to be done in public. | ||
| By the way, this is one of the reasons that I totally support video cameras in all federal courthouses. | ||
| It's ridiculous that we don't have this. | ||
| We absolutely should have it to be able to monitor the conduct of these people. | ||
| And we do need to have checks and balances, and that's why... | ||
| I love the fact that the legislature is finally bringing up their own power and taking up the reins of this without allowing this unelected bureaucracy to maintain so much power. | ||
| And that's exactly what Stephen Miller was talking about last week. | ||
| Look, the fact that it was an open— Court, an open forum that is fundamentally different than having a closed discussion between government leaders, which yes, of course, they allowed someone in, which they shouldn't have. | ||
| That is fundamentally different. | ||
| You put something out in court that means everyone in public can have access to this thing if it is not done under seal. | ||
| That's a huge reason, a blinking red flag that Pam Bondi absolutely has to look after. | ||
| And by the way, these judges, they don't have full immunity. | ||
| They don't have full immunity. | ||
| Remember, no one is above the law. | ||
| Remember that? | ||
| No one is above the law. | ||
| So we need to look at all of these procedures. | ||
| If they want to play hardball, we can play hardball all day long when it comes to the conduct of these judges, when it comes to the purse, when it comes to the budget strings. | ||
| We're going to look at every single piece of it. | ||
| Okay, we're going to cut right to the question right now. | ||
| they're asking the question. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm asking. | |
| Did you just determine it was not classified or was there any declassification after the fact? | ||
| So to be clear, so everyone understands the process, as we talked about, signal is a permissible use. | ||
| I understand that. | ||
| The CIA has been approved by the White House for senior officials. | ||
| And appropriate for many conversations. | ||
| And recommended by CISA for high-level officials who would be targeted by foreign adversaries to use end-to-end encrypted apps whenever possible, like Signal. | ||
| In this case, what the National Security Advisor did was to request Through a signal message that there be coordination. | ||
| So you mentioned the name of a CIA active officer, correct? | ||
| I didn't mention the name. | ||
| You didn't mention the name. | ||
| I mentioned the existence of that. | ||
| And in the article, the implication was that somehow that was improper. | ||
| That was not the case. | ||
| So a CIA officer was not operating undercover. | ||
| So the request for coordination was for a staff member to coordinate on the high side. | ||
| So I communicated the name of a CIA officer not operating undercover, completely appropriate, who does openly and routinely coordinate with the White House as a member of my staff. | ||
| So the intimation there that there was something inappropriate was clearly in Did it occur to you that that given the sensitive nature of this discussion that it could just move to the high side? | ||
| So that was clearly, Senator, I think the intent was that this was initially set up By the National Security Advisor with the instruction that send a point of contact and then you will be provided with information further on the high side for high side communication. | ||
| So I think clearly it reflects that the National Security Advisor intended this to be as it should have been. | ||
| A mechanism for coordinating between senior level officials, but not a substitute for using high side or classified communications for anything that would be classified. | ||
| And I think that that is exactly what did happen. | ||
| So I'm curious, did this conversation at some point include information on weapons packages, targets, or timing? | ||
| Not that I'm aware of. | ||
| Director Gabbard. | ||
| Same question. | ||
| Same answer and defer to the Department of Defense on that question. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, those are two different answers, but you're saying that was not part of the conversation. | |
| That's my knowledge. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Precise operational issues were not part of this conversation. | |
| Correct. Okay. | ||
| I want to ask you, Director Gabbard, something on a very different track here, which is, I very much agree with the conclusion of the ATA that foreign illicit drug actors are a major threat in the United States, and many of you have spoken to this today. | ||
| Okay, Jack, we're going to go to commercial break in a second, but I want your summary. | ||
| I don't understand, and I realize we're doing this in real time. | ||
| If you're going to take a hard line, you take a hard line. | ||
| Supposedly the White House counselor, somebody's looking into this. | ||
| There's no, and I don't understand why Ratcliffe's getting into this kind of detail back and forth with these guys. | ||
| They're not here. | ||
| The Democrats here are not to illuminate. | ||
| They've already said, they already said they want the National Security Advisor to resign. | ||
| The whole Democrat left-wing media is all over this. | ||
| I don't know why, and I don't understand why there's not coordination between, in the White House, between the direct central CIA and Tulsi Gabbard. | ||
| And my belief is that for right now, while this thing kind of, you know, it's playing out, and people at the White House are kind of working through it, why you have Ratcliffe going into chapter and verse and trying to explain this, they're not interested in an explanation. | ||
| They're interested in tanking down the Commander-in-Chief, the President of the United States. | ||
| And somebody's got to get savvy over there on this topic. | ||
| This is, they're not there to illuminate and help the American people think this thing through. | ||
| Jack Posovic. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Look, Steve, when you're in a communications environment like this, which is politically fraught from a strategic level, every time that someone gives a different message than the main message, the White House level down, this is under investigation. | |
| This is under investigation. | ||
| But when someone goes into business for themselves and starts putting out a different message, giving additional information... | ||
| Pushing back or giving anything out. | ||
| Now you're creating more challenges for either members of the White House team, members of various other teams, communications teams and security teams that are involved in all of this. | ||
| And you're giving them avenues of attack to come down. | ||
| Look, it's very simple to explain what's going on here. | ||
| Democrats have politicized this. | ||
| That's what Warner's doing. | ||
| That's what Wyden's doing. | ||
| They have politicized this. | ||
| And you could easily say, look, if you want more information, let's talk about it in a classified setting. | ||
| You're trying to get me to leak classified information in an open setting right now. | ||
| It's time to move on. | ||
| These people, there's a war going on that President Trump's trying to stop. | ||
| This is a senior intelligence advisor. | ||
| It's time to move on. | ||
| And you move on not by playing ball with these guys. | ||
| It's ridiculous. | ||
| This is just to all drive the news cycle. | ||
| Stupid. Okay, short commercial break. | ||
| We're going to be back in a moment to this hearing. | ||
| Jack Posobiec, Stephen K. Bennett giving commentary and observations. | ||
| After I've had that opportunity. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Director Patel. | |
| Thank you, Senator. | ||
| With my background in FISA and 702, I just want to clearly delineate between FISA Title 1-3 and 702 collection. | ||
| We need to both ardently defend its use, but also ardently support reforms that allow the American public to entrust that those charged with those capabilities are not violating the Fourth Amendment or any other violation. | ||
| Speaking to Title 1 and Title 3, when it comes to U.S. persons, I have already included an amendment. | ||
| In terms of FBI language to make sure that when a U.S. person is targeted, that the FBI specifically is responsible for culling through all exculpatory information that is reasonably known and satisfying that burden and stating it in the application. | ||
| When it comes to 702, Senator, some of the biggest enterprise efforts we have had to thwart national security risk Thank | ||
|
unidentified
|
you all. | |
| I look forward to the discussion in the closed session. | ||
| Senator King. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| Director Gabbard, I didn't intend to get into the Jeffrey Goldberg story, but something you said has sort of puzzled me. | ||
| According to open source reporting at 1144 on the morning of March 15th, Secretary Hedsef put into this group text a detailed operation plan, including targets, the weapons we were going to be using, attack sequences, and timing. | ||
| And yet you've testified that nothing in that chain was classified. | ||
| Wouldn't that be classified? | ||
| What if that had been made public that morning before the attack took place? | ||
| Senator, I can attest to the fact that there were no classified or intelligence equities that were included in that chat group at any time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So the attack sequencing and timing and weapons and targets you don't consider should have been classified? | |
| I defer to the Secretary of Defense and the National Security Council on that question. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you're the head of the intelligence community, and you're supposed to know about classifications. | |
| So your testimony very clearly today is that nothing was in that set of texts that were classified. | ||
| I'll follow up on Senator Wyden's question. | ||
| If that's the case, please release that whole text stream so that the public can have a view of what actually transpired on this discussion. | ||
| It's hard for me to believe that targets and timing and weapons would not have been classified. | ||
| Well, let me move on. | ||
| You approved this report, this annual report, prepared by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. | ||
| Is this submitted to the White House routinely in anticipation of its public release? | ||
| I don't know what you mean by submitted routinely. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Was this report submitted to the White House before its release today? | |
| It was submitted to them once it was completed. | ||
| I think probably around the same time it was sent to all of you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I want to move on. | |
| One note that surprised me, I've been on this committee now for, this is my 13th year, every single one of these reports that we have had has mentioned global climate change as a significant national security threat, except this one. | ||
| Has something happened? | ||
| Has global climate change been solved? | ||
| Why is that not in this report? | ||
| And who made the decision that it should not be in the report when it's been in every one of the 11 prior reports? | ||
| I can't speak to the decisions made previously, but this annual threat assessment has been focused very directly on the threats that we deem most critical to the United States international security. | ||
| Obviously, we're aware of occurrences within the environment and how they may impact operations, but we're focused on the direct threats to Americans' safety, well-being, and security. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How about how they will impact mass migration, famine, dislocation, political violence, which is the finding, by the way, of the 2019 annual threat assessment under the first Trump administration? | |
| You don't consider that a significant national security threat? | ||
| For the intelligence community, being aware of the environment that we're operating in is a given. | ||
| What I focused this annual threat assessment on and the IC focused this threat assessment on are the most extreme and critical direct threats to our national security. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Let me ask a direct question. | |
| Who decided climate change should be left out of this report after it's been in the prior 11? | ||
| Where was that decision being? | ||
| I gave direction to our team at ODNI to focus on the most extreme and critical national security threats that we face. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Did your direction include no comments on climate change? | |
| Senator, as I said, I focused on the most extreme and direct national security threats that we face. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's not a response to my question. | |
| Did you instruct that there be no finding in terms of climate change in this report? | ||
| I don't recall giving that instruction. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Final questions in a few short seconds that I have left. | |
| You all concede, and it's in the report repeatedly, about the cyber danger from China, from Russia, from Iran. | ||
| Why then is the administration deconstructing CISA? | ||
| 130 people fired. | ||
| General Hawk talked about the importance of public-private cooperation. | ||
| That section of CISA seems to have been disestablished. | ||
| What possible policy reason is there for undermining CISA's relationship to the states with regard to elections and to the private sector with regard to cybersecurity when the cybersecurity threat is only growing? | ||
| Anybody want to tackle that? | ||
| I won't speak for all of my colleagues here, but I don't believe any of us have any insight into those specific staffing decisions that have been made. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, let me ask you this question. | |
| The report has found explicitly growing cyber threats, including two elections from Russia, China, Iran. | ||
| Do you believe that it's in the national interest to diminish our capacity to deal with those cyber issues? | ||
| Yes or no? | ||
| President Trump is focused on effects and making sure that the people that we have and the resources that we have are focused on our national security. | ||
| He and his team recognize that more people doesn't necessarily always mean better effects. | ||
| Those are some of the things that are driving the changes that we're seeing across the administration, is getting all of our agencies back and focused on their core mission. | ||
|
unidentified
|
General Hawk, do you agree that... | |
| Senator Kane, your time has expired. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
|
unidentified
|
First of all, thank you to all of you for your service to our country. | |
| Let me bring Jack Posovic back in. | ||
| Very interesting on CISA and climate change right there, Jack. | ||
| But let's go back to the... | ||
| They've already announced they're going to go to a closed door. | ||
| When they say closed door, that means the classified part of this, whether they can get into it deeper. | ||
| Jack Posovic, as we know, most of the action takes place behind closed doors. | ||
| When they're asking, they can ask classified questions or information. | ||
| They can ask questions about classified information and get it. | ||
| All these senators are essentially cleared at a pretty high level of classification. | ||
| Once again, and you see Angus King, what they're going to try to do is pick this apart. | ||
| If you don't take a hard line and just say, hey, we've got business we're taking care of. | ||
| This is already being reviewed by the White House Council of the White House. | ||
| Check in with them. | ||
| You take a hard line, then you move about your business. | ||
| And the business at hand is providing the intelligence to stop the kinetic part of the Third World War. | ||
| These guys are fully occupied, right? | ||
| And so in anything you do, and particularly, you know, I'm not trying to be on John Ratcliffe's case, but the more that you are chatty... | ||
| The more you're just opening it up, these guys are trying to pick it apart, they're going to try to, you know, get to every verb, every pronoun you're using, pick it apart, and then the jackals in the media will turn it up, and I'll be blunt. | ||
| They've made Jeffrey Goldberg now a central part of the story. | ||
| He doesn't have to be. | ||
| He somehow got involved in this chain. | ||
| If you don't have this debate publicly about whether it's classified information or not, you keep him off to the sidelines. | ||
| Now, correct me if I'm wrong, you've made him a centerpiece, and that's what King and Wyden are teeing up. | ||
| You see the tee up they're doing for the rest of the day to be a firestorm in the media and to try to make a mountain. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Steve, think about it. | |
| Jeff Goldberg has been the center of so many of the psyops that we've seen before. | ||
| He was at the center of suckers and losers. | ||
| This was the guy that ran with suckers and losers hoax. | ||
| He's been the center of the Russiagate dossiers, the center of the Iraq War architect and cheerleader. | ||
| So why was it that Jeff Goldberg—think about this. | ||
| You want me to tell me this wasn't coordinated, that he didn't get with the staff of the SSCI, the Democrat staff? | ||
| I've got this thing. | ||
| It's going to drop the day before. | ||
| I'm going to hold it to the date. | ||
| Remember, this is a pre-scheduled hearing. | ||
| So if you don't think this is a coordinated operation, then you have not been paying attention to the last eight years. | ||
| This is what they do. | ||
| They work with their allies. | ||
| They're able to get their leaks out. | ||
| They're able to coordinate all of this stuff. | ||
| So the fact that he holds the whole thing, right? | ||
| This wasn't yesterday that he got this. | ||
| He held it all the way up until the very day before the hearing, drops the bomb. | ||
| When he does, yesterday afternoon, blows up the whole thing, doesn't give people much time to respond, and then boom, here we are in the hearing itself. | ||
| Look, this whole thing stinks. | ||
| It stinks to high heaven. | ||
| I've got potentially even more questions about, okay, so if this thing was a signal chat on government, let's play that game, Steve. | ||
| If this was loaded onto government computers, who all has access to be able to add people into these signal chats? | ||
| Who all has access on a server level? | ||
| To be able to see those messages. | ||
| We actually need to start asking questions because I remember there were thin mints in the ointment last time around and there may be thin mints in the ointment here again. | ||
| All of a sudden, it's Jeff Goldberg of all people who gets added. | ||
| Come on, man. | ||
| This thing stinks. | ||
| Okay. This is why I said there's no coincidence at the top of this. | ||
| This whole thing was planned. | ||
| The leak was planned. | ||
| The timing of this all happened on the 15th of March. | ||
| Jack Posovic is absolutely stone cold right. | ||
| This was put out yesterday because they knew they had a pre-scheduled hearing today on the annual report of threats, and they're going to use this. | ||
| This is why you take a hard line. | ||
| You don't play their game. | ||
| They're not here to get information to help the nation. | ||
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| Short break, back to the Senate Intel hearing. | ||
| Jack Posobiec is my wingman this morning. | ||
| National Security Advisor. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I've seen conflicting reports about who added the reporter to the signal messaging group. | |
| perfectly appropriate that there was a reporter added especially one that the That the Secretary of Defense says is deceitful, highly discredited, a so-called journalist who's made a profession of peddling hoaxes over and over again. | ||
| Is your testimony that it was appropriate that he was added to this signal thread? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, of course not. | |
| Why did you not call him? | ||
| Hold on, Senator. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You're mischaracterizing my testimony. | |
| Good. You answered the question. | ||
| Let me ask you. | ||
| When he was added to the thread, you're the CIA director. | ||
| Why didn't you call out that he was present on the signal thread? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't know if you use signal messaging app. | |
| I do. | ||
| I do. | ||
| Not for classified information, not for targeting, not for anything remote. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Neither do I, Senator. | |
| Well, that's what your testimony is today. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It absolutely is not, Senator. | |
| Were you not listening at the beginning when I said that I was using it? | ||
| As permitted, it is permissible to use. | ||
| I agree that's your testimony. | ||
| Yeah. I agree that's your testimony. | ||
| You asked me if I use it, and I said not for targeting, not for classified information. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I said I don't either. | |
| I also know Jeff Goldberg. | ||
| I don't use it to communicate with him, but you thought it was appropriate. | ||
| By the way, I think he's one of the more outstanding journalists in America. | ||
| But I'm shocked to find him on a thread that he's reading in the parking lot of a grocery store in Washington, D.C. And your testimony as the director of the CIA is that it's totally appropriate. | ||
| Is it appropriate? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No. Director, that is not what I... | |
| When did I say it was... | ||
|
unidentified
|
When did I use the word appropriate? | |
| Well, go ahead, please. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I didn't. | |
| Everybody in America, there's nothing to see here is what your testimony is. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I never said that. | |
| This is just a normal day at the CIA where we chat about this kind of stuff over Signal. | ||
| In fact, it's so normal that the last administration left it here for us. | ||
| That's your testimony. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Today. That's your testimony, Senator. | |
| No, that's not my testimony. | ||
| That's what you said. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I didn't say any of those things that you just related, Senator. | |
| I heard you say it. | ||
| We'll let the American people decide. | ||
| Let me ask you one final point. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm out of time. | |
| You mischaracterized it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, are you going to give me a chance to- Is it appropriate? | |
| Did you know that the president's Middle East advisor was in Moscow on this thread while you were, as director of the CIA, participating in this- In this thread, were you aware of that? | ||
| Are you aware of that today? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm not aware of that today. | |
| This sloppiness, this incompetence, this disrespect for our intelligence agencies and the personnel who work for them is entirely unacceptable. | ||
| It's an embarrassment. | ||
| Senator, you need to do better. | ||
| You need to do better. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I'm being gaveled by the... | ||
| Chairman, and I apologize for going over my time. | ||
| Senator Young. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you all for being here. | |
| Let me have it. | ||
| Okay. Okay. | ||
| Posobiec, this is why I said at the beginning, you take a hard line and say it's being investigated. | ||
| You don't open yourself up. | ||
| Hang on. | ||
| Radcliffe, in trying to be the explanation, that's Michael Bennett of Colorado. | ||
| And Michael Bennett is a very skilled guy coming in and taking a cheap shot. | ||
| And right there you can see the whole news cycle. | ||
| And this is, let me be blunt. | ||
| If you're going to take on the deep state, you've got to take them on. | ||
| There's no half measures here. | ||
| The deep state is this apparatus of the intelligence community, the law enforcement community, you've got people in DOD, you've got Brennan and all these jackals on the outside. | ||
| You have to be rock hard. | ||
| And I mean rock hard. | ||
| Bennett... Bennett came in for the kill because Ratcliffe had set himself up in the opening thing by getting chatty. | ||
| These hearings are not to be chatty. | ||
| They are not a search for truth. | ||
| They are not a search for truth. | ||
| To use this as political information warfare. | ||
| And this was amateurish of the director of the CIA. | ||
| He should have never gotten into that discussion, I said at the very beginning. | ||
| And Michael Bennett, who's a smart guy and a tough guy and a guy that you can't trust, came in for the kill because Radcliffe set him up. | ||
| And look at Radcliffe's response right there. | ||
| Jack Posobiec. | ||
| And Posobiec, you nailed it about you and I were talking at the break about Goldberg. | ||
| We get back and the whole thing is about how the hell did you have Goldberg in here? | ||
| And there's no reasoning. | ||
| And then Ratcliffe set himself up about Steve Witkoff being in Moscow. | ||
| This is not a search for truth. | ||
| It's not a search for truth. | ||
| Tulsi Gabbard's hard line at the beginning was the appropriate hard line of this administration. | ||
| It's basically, screw you. | ||
| We're here to work for the Commander-in-Chief in ending these wars that you have allowed to get out of control. | ||
| Full stop. | ||
| It's being investigated. | ||
| If you've got a question, call the White House. | ||
| Jack Posovic. | ||
|
unidentified
|
See, this is exactly what you warned about. | |
| Look, these people are going to twist your words. | ||
| They're going to twist your statements. | ||
| This is why you don't talk. | ||
| This is why you say, hey, you know, when the FBI rolls up, you say, hey, talk to my lawyer, okay? | ||
| Talk to my lawyer. | ||
| Maybe not on the current FBI, but we'll see, all right? | ||
| So, of course, they're going to twist your words. | ||
| Of course, the Democrats are going to do this. | ||
| This is a show trial. | ||
| This is a Maoist-style struggle session. | ||
| And anything they put... | ||
| This is what the Cultural Revolutionaries did. | ||
| This is what the Red Guards did. | ||
| They put you on a struggle session. | ||
| And the more you talk, the more you give them, the more ability they will use to hang you with your own words. | ||
| So you said it was appropriate. | ||
| I never said it was appropriate. | ||
| Oh, it's appropriate now. | ||
| And then watch. | ||
| John Ratcliffe is a good man. | ||
| John Ratcliffe tried to engage them. | ||
| Right? And try to gauge it. | ||
| And look how they twisted. | ||
| Look how Bennett came in and waited for the kill. | ||
| Right? Waited for the kill. | ||
| And look at Ratcliffe trying to defend himself. | ||
| This is a Moscow show trial. | ||
| You're 100% right. | ||
| This is like in front of the Nazi judges where they just keep haranguing you on everything you said and twisting it and twist you in the wind. | ||
| This is exactly a struggle session. | ||
| This is what Mao Zedong went back to every village and did. | ||
| This is why you do not engage with them. | ||
| 101. You engage with them. | ||
| Now this thing is going to take on a life of its own because these people are jackals. | ||
| This is not a search for truth, Posobiec. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Not a search for truth. | |
| What it is is a search for dirt. | ||
| And if there is no dirt, they will throw the dirt on you and say, look, this guy's got dirt on it. | ||
| They're going to say, look, this admin's got dirt on it. | ||
| We have no idea, by the way, who actually added this person to the signal chat. | ||
| And I'm even going to sit there. | ||
| And since Darren Beatty is otherwise occupied, I'll be the one to say it. | ||
| We don't actually know who added Jeff Goldberg to this chat. | ||
| And I'm not going to stipulate that it was, you know, it was the staffer, it was the innocent. | ||
| No, no, no. | ||
| Who added him to the chat? | ||
| Who actually did that? | ||
| How is it that the guy who did the suckers and losers, who's at the Atlantic, which has been the centerpiece, the centerpiece of the Atlanticist operations, of the deep state operations, the mouthpiece for Ann Applebaum and the neocons and the rest of them, that this guy, who's the overall head of this, is the one who's added... | ||
| I don't know, man. | ||
| Something does not smell right to me. | ||
| It doesn't smell right at all. | ||
| The coordination, leaking it the exact day before this hearing comes out is obvious. | ||
| It's clear that this happened, by the way. | ||
| I'm sure he's in a bunch of signal chats with Democrats that never come out in the Atlantic or anywhere else. | ||
| This is an operation that was designed to set up the struggle session that you are seeing today, and you need to see that coming and say, no mas, I'm not playing ball, I'm not giving you anything. | ||
| First off, these people have to understand something. | ||
| There's a bunch of these senators on the Republican side are wobbly. | ||
| You've got a bunch of weakness up there. | ||
| It's 53, what, 53-47. | ||
| It doesn't take a lot. | ||
| A couple of three of these people get wobbly and get wobbly. | ||
| All of a sudden you have a vote in the Senate. | ||
| You can have an investigation. | ||
| You have to take a hard line. | ||
| This is the national security. | ||
| Like, President Trump's taking a hard line. | ||
| He implemented state secret last night on the judge. | ||
| Matt Gaetz said, game over. | ||
| That is as smash-mouth as you can get. | ||
| President Trump is in the business of peace and prosperity and taking on the administrative state and the deep state. | ||
| He's taking on a judicial insurrection about as hard as he can. | ||
| He's taking on the system. | ||
| The CNN article yesterday, he's taking on the elites in this country and their institutions. | ||
| And the last thing you do is play into their freaking hands. | ||
| They're not here to assist you. | ||
| They're not here to basically make up for all the mistakes that they have made. | ||
| Mistakes of, you know, conscious and unconscious. | ||
| Many of these were done on purpose that were in these wars. | ||
| Your job, your task, and your purpose is not to feed the machine. | ||
| And now you've fed the machine in a struggle session. | ||
| That you wait the rest of the day and tonight in the New York Times, this thing's going to go in a million different directions. | ||
| Take a hard line. | ||
| The hard line, he's commander-in-chief. | ||
| Right? And they're going to review it. | ||
| He's got anything to say about it. | ||
| The White House has anything to say about it. | ||
| They'll get back to you. | ||
| We've got a job to do. | ||
| I'm here to answer any questions about this document that's there. | ||
| And so it's the annual intelligence review, Posobiec. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Look, this is why they're going after Tulsi on the climate change stuff. | |
| This is why the rest of that is coming out. | ||
| You say, look. | ||
| I'm not going to give you anything. | ||
| I'm not going to participate in the struggle session. | ||
| Which, by the way, people tried to put me on a struggle session a week ago over the whole Christ is King thing. | ||
| And I had Jordan Peterson and eight people associated with the ADL. | ||
| And they were saying, oh, it means something else when he says Christ is King. | ||
| And I had Seth Dillon with the Babylon Bees coming out. | ||
| What do you mean? | ||
| I said, I'm not playing. | ||
| I said, I'm not playing. | ||
| You try that with somebody else. | ||
| You could go ask somebody else that. | ||
| Try it on somebody else. | ||
| I'm not playing this game. | ||
| I'm not interested. | ||
| I'm not going in. | ||
| I'm not going to play this game hardline. | ||
| It's hard line, and it stopped. | ||
| And now all those people are backpedaling completely on the crisis game and say, well, you know, you should say it, but you just got to, yeah, no, stop. | ||
| We know what you're trying to do. | ||
| We know it was a struggle session. | ||
| I know when you're trying to put me on a struggle session or get me to co-sign someone else's struggle session, I don't play that game. | ||
| I do not play that game. | ||
| It's because I'm Polish, maybe. | ||
| It's because we've seen the communism before. | ||
| We're going to jump back in. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Let's go. | |
| Let's go back to the question of the Democrats. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Ratcliffe, you're nodding your head. | |
| Any mention of any military unit whatsoever? | ||
| Mr. Ratcliffe? | ||
| Not that I recall. | ||
| Ms. Gabbard? | ||
| Not that I recall. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, so I understand that DOD policy prohibits discussion of even what is called Controlled Unclassified Information, or CUI, on unsecured devices. | |
| Are both of you aware of that DOD policy? | ||
| I haven't read that policy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Not familiar with the DOD policy, but I would say that the Secretary of Defense is the original classification authority for DOD in deciding what would be classified information. | |
| Ms. Gabbard, does the intelligence community have a policy that prohibits discussion of controlled, unclassified information? | ||
| Yes. It does. | ||
| Okay. Controlled, unclassified... | ||
| Information, according to DOD, includes information that has not been approved for public release. | ||
| Would you, of what's been disclosed publicly of the signal chain, would either of you feel that that would be approved for public release? | ||
| Ms. Gabbard. | ||
| The discussion that took place in that Signal chat group was a conversation reflecting national security leaders and the vice president around the president's objectives. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So yes or no, would you approve that for public release? | |
| I don't feel I can answer that question here. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Because of the nature of this hearing? | |
| Because of the nature of a... | ||
| Private discussion that took place between individual leaders in our government. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It would make sense that you would not approve it for public release, wouldn't it? | |
| There are other factors that would go into that consideration. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Ratcliffe, yes or no? | |
| I wouldn't approve the release of classified information. | ||
| Again, as I've said... | ||
| I'm not talking about classified information, Mr. Ratcliffe. | ||
| I'm talking about information that has not been approved for public release. | ||
| That is information that is considered controlled, unclassified information. | ||
| The principles that would have been on that would have been individuals capable of approving that for public release. | ||
| I've got 20 seconds. | ||
| The deliberation as to whether or not we should launch a strike on another country, would you consider that classified information, Ms. Gabbard? | ||
| The information was not classified. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm not talking about this. | |
| I'm just talking about deliberation from principles as to whether or not we should launch a strike on another country. | ||
| Would you consider that classified information? | ||
| I'm not talking about what happened this week. | ||
| There are other factors that would go into determining that classification. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Ratcliffe? | |
| The deliberation between principles in our national security apparatus about whether or not to strike another country, would you consider that to be classified information? | ||
| Pre-decisional strike deliberation should be conducted through classified channels. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| If I may, I just want to return, Mr. Ratcliffe, to your answer there in part to Senator Kelly. | ||
| It's been raised at several occasions now in this hearing about whether classified information was discussed in this chat and you mentioned about the Secretary of Defense being what you called I think the original classification authority. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Correct. Correct. | |
| I think it's important for the public to understand that although you and Director Gabbard are original classification authorities on many matters, you're not that for all matters that might be classified in the government, is that right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's correct. | |
| So if the Secretary of State has classified sensitive diplomatic details, that's his authority. | ||
| If the Secretary of Energy has sensitive classified information about our national laboratories, that's his authority. | ||
| And the two of you can't speak to other departments who have their own original classification authority, in which, of course, as Director Gabber said, ultimately rested with one person, the President of the United States. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's correct. | |
| Okay. I just wanted to... | ||
| Clarify that. | ||
| It looks like the vice chairman wants to weigh in as well. | ||
| Just very briefly. | ||
| I mean, I think it strains the audience and the watching public's credibility. | ||
| If we're talking about timing, packages, that somehow this would be okay to put out. | ||
| Or just, frankly, senior American officials trashing Europe. | ||
| I've been around this for a while. | ||
| This is not information you generally put out. | ||
| And the notion there's not even acknowledgement of, hey, gosh, we screwed up, is stunning to me. | ||
| And the idea somehow, well, none of this was classified, but we can't talk about it here. | ||
| You can't have it both ways. | ||
| I think the witness's point is they can't speak for every official in the government who has original classification authority. | ||
| Chairman, I don't—that's not what we're—I'm not trying to litigate that. | ||
| I'm trying to litigate on the face unless, as Senator Bennett said, this reporter is somehow making this all up. | ||
| And I think the White House has acknowledged that the text chain that he submitted was authentic. | ||
| It strains my mind to think—it strains my mind if the shoe had been on the other foot. | ||
| What my colleagues would be saying about this. | ||
| And again, we're going to get to the bottom of it. | ||
| I appreciate your comments, but you guys have both testified under law. | ||
| There's nothing classified in that information. | ||
| There's nothing, in a sense, I've not heard either one of you say, gosh, we screwed up. | ||
| So we'll find out. | ||
| This is too important to our national security. | ||
| And again, I know we've got more members to close. | ||
| They testified, is my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, that there's no intelligence community classified information. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
| That's correct. | ||
| Is that correct, Director Gabbard? | ||
| Yes, Chairman. | ||
| Well, again. | ||
| That's not correct. | ||
|
unidentified
|
She said repeatedly there's nothing classified. | |
| Period. Period. | ||
| You can't have it both. | ||
| And, again, we'll see. | ||
| I cannot believe this is not going to come out. | ||
| And if it's not classified, again, we'd ask you to make it, give it to the public today. | ||
| I'm sure one of your aides back there probably got it. | ||
| On paper, if you've got it here, it's not classified. | ||
| Stand by your position. | ||
| Or is this just one more example of a careless approach to how we keep our secrets in this administration? | ||
| With apologies to Senator Moran. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our witnesses for being here. | |
| I want to explore a little bit about Ukraine, and I'll direct this to Director Radcliffe. | ||
| That is called A Cleanup in Aisle 3 by Senator Tom Cotton, the chairman. | ||
| And folks, Warner just said it right there. | ||
| This is now, because they play in hand, they're going to, quote-unquote, get to the bottom of it. | ||
| And you hear how they're parsing it. | ||
| Like I said, once again, Jack Posobiec, this is not a search for truth. | ||
| These people are jackals. | ||
| They're going to use this to weaponize against President Trump. | ||
| And now you've got the courts, you've got this radical judiciary coming at one angle, and now you've got the deep state that's now got fuel to come at President Trump for the other angle. | ||
| Hey, buckle up, folks, because this is going to get pretty bumpy. | ||
| Jack Posovic. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, it's getting fun now. | |
| The ops are moving. | ||
| The ops are moving. | ||
| The operations. | ||
| Do you think the deep state just was going to roll over? | ||
| Did you think those guys disappeared? | ||
| Do you think all the people that we've been fighting since 2016 onward have just magically vanished? | ||
| And all of a sudden, Steve, look, it's the same players it's always been. | ||
| That's what gets me, man. | ||
| It's the same players, and we keep falling for the same thing over and over. | ||
| You've got the Intel community. | ||
| You've got the SSCI. | ||
| You've got Mark Werner! | ||
| I who was shopping the Steele dossier around. | ||
| That same guy who was coordinating with the Steele dossier. | ||
| And you got, you know, Chris Steele's going up on Piers Morgan, at least. | ||
| Natalie Winters at least treated Chris Steele on Piers Morgan the way that he deserved. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's how you treat a deep state apparatchik. | |
| You don't sit there and act like these guys are operating in good faith. | ||
| They are enemy. | ||
| They are trying to take you down and through you the agenda of the American people and the America First movement, period, full stop. | ||
| That's what this is all about. | ||
| Now you're playing along. | ||
| You're acting like the struggle session has merit. | ||
| You're acting like the investigation has merit, that any of these people have merit, that any of these people should be allowed to have control of our country. | ||
| No, absolutely not. | ||
| You're trying to wrest control from them. | ||
| This is a regime. | ||
| And the old regime is still in place. | ||
| Their infrastructure is still in place. | ||
| They're burrowed deep in there. | ||
| That's why we call them the deep state. | ||
| And that's why they're throwing sand in the gears of the machine. | ||
| They're doing this. | ||
| You're watching interrogation. | ||
| You're watching a struggle session. | ||
| This is something out of Moscow. | ||
| This is something out of Chairman Mao. | ||
| By the way, at the end of these... | ||
| With Chairman Mao, what they used to do with the Red Guards is they'd put the sign around your neck. | ||
| They're putting the sign around the neck right now, and usually that would end with a gunshot, and they charge the family for the bullet. | ||
| Yeah. You put the dunce hat on and the sign around the neck. | ||
| I want to go back. | ||
| So we're going to end our broadcast this morning. | ||
| We're obviously going to have so much about this. | ||
| There's a common thread here. | ||
| From Wisconsin, we were going to have the folks from Florida 6 on. | ||
| DeGrasse is going to be on, also the chairman of the St. John's County down there, about we've got to get on top of this race. | ||
| There's a problem in Florida 6. There's a problem in Wisconsin. | ||
| Part of the problem here is people have just said, hey, we won in November, man. | ||
| This is a good time. | ||
| I told you from the beginning, this is a war. | ||
| Every day, and they're on point. | ||
| They mean to crush President Trump, to end MAGA, to end the Trump movement, and guess what? | ||
| To impeach him and put him in jail. | ||
| Don't think we're through that. | ||
| If you think you're through that, you don't understand reality. | ||
| Look at what happened today. | ||
| Jack Pessoa, before I leave, I want to go back to the most important point today. | ||
| All of this happened, this text chain, everything you're talking about, is the attack on the Houthis that took place on March 15th, Saturday, the Ides of March. | ||
| Do you think it's just random that it got released yesterday? | ||
| I got a minute for you before you got to bounce. | ||
| Talk about that. | ||
| Talk about this. | ||
| This was a hearing that was set up. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| Tell us about how this was set up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's not random. | |
| It's 100% coordinated. | ||
| You really think that it's the Atlantic, which we've always told you is the central mouthpiece for the deep state apparatus, the blob apparatus, as Mike Benz calls it, the Atlantis apparatus mouthpiece. | ||
| They're number one guy. | ||
| The guy who was behind the suckers and losers' hopes, the same outlet that was behind the Russian bounties and so many other hoaxes throughout the years, in coordination with the Democrats on SSCI on this hearing the day before they knew it came out, if you don't understand you're looking at a coordinated operation, then you must have been asleep for the last eight years. | ||
| Understand, this is being done. | ||
| To derail MAGA. | ||
| This is being done to derail the agenda. | ||
| This is being done to try to isolate various cabinet members, to pick them off, and attack them one by one or to get them to fight amongst each other. | ||
| That's why it's going on right now. | ||
| That's how these things always happen. | ||
| You're looking at an operation. | ||
| If you don't think you're looking at an operation, you better wake up because you're in one. | ||
| Okay, let me, some programming notes. | ||
| Charlie Kirk, the great Charlie Kirk, is going to pick this up live. | ||
| We're going to continue coverage on Real America's Voice. | ||
| Jack Basova will be back at 2. We're going to be back 5 to 7, break all this down for you. | ||
| Also, so much other news is going on in the judiciary. | ||
| This is a full-out assault on President Trump's presidency, and they're gearing up for it. | ||
| Jack Basova, okay, let's go right down to the Democrat question. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
... | |
| reported in the Atlantic Monthly, is that correct? | ||
| No, that's not correct. | ||
| So, Senator, what I've related is that any information that was related from my perspective or that I observed from the intelligence perspective was not classified information. | ||
| With respect to the assertions and the allegations that there was... | ||
| Strike packages or targeting information or things that relate to DOD. | ||
| As I've pointed out, the Secretary of Defense is the original classification authority for determining whether something's classified or not. | ||
| And as I've understood from media reports, the Secretary of Defense has said the information was not classified. | ||
| Are you aware that the Secretary of Defense declassified this information prior to the discussion? | ||
| I'm not. | ||
| Director Gabbard, same question. | ||
| You've indicated, at least the impression I got, was there was no classified information discussed. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
| Senator, my answer is the same as the director of the CIA's. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So, the question has to be posed to Secretary Hegsteth whether he declassified the information and at what point he did declassify it. | |
| Do you agree? | ||
| Yes, I defer questions to the Secretary of Defense. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. Director Patel, are you conducting an investigation of these discussions and activities? | |
| Thank you, Senator. | ||
| As I informed the Vice Chairman on the same question, I found out about this late last night, early this morning, so I don't have an update for you on that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, thank you. | |
| When you get an update, we'd appreciate it very much. | ||
| Yes, sir. | ||
| Director Gabbitt, were you overseas during any parts of these discussions? | ||
| Yes, Senator, I was. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Were you using your private phone or public phone for the signal discussions? | |
| I won't speak to this because it's under review by the National Security Council. | ||
| Once that review is complete, I'm sure we'll share the results with the committee. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What is under review? | |
| It's a very simple question. | ||
| Your private phone or officially issued phone. | ||
| What could be under review? | ||
| National Security Council is reviewing all aspects of how this came to be, how the journalist was inadvertently added to the group chat. | ||
| We're pitching this live to Charlie Kirk right now. | ||
|
unidentified
|
See you back here at 5. So you are not going to disclose anything about whether you use the phone. |
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