[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 54 (Tuesday, March 25, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1810-S1811]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          The Atlantic Report

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, yesterday, it was reported that 
classified war plans were leaked by the Secretary of Defense over 
unsecured text messages. These text exchanges, confirmed by the 
administration as authentic, included the Defense Secretary, the 
National Security Advisor, the CIA Director, the Vice President of the 
United States, and, unintentionally, a journalist with no security 
clearance.
  For the Defense Secretary to coordinate war plans in such a haphazard 
and dangerous way puts our national security, our troops, and every 
single American at risk. They intentionally put highly classified 
information on an unclassified device.
  Every single Senator, Democrat and Republican and Independent, must 
demand accountability. I am calling for a bipartisan investigation in 
the Senate of this mishandling. I am also calling for the Defense IG to 
fully investigate. This is too serious not to know exactly what 
happened, why it happened, and how to prevent it from ever happening 
again.
  The Senate and the executive branch have an obligation to fully 
investigate how this mishandling of sensitive national defense 
information was allowed to happen. Republicans must not just shrug 
their shoulders and call this incident ``one of those learning 
moments''--no, no, no. This is a serious matter--a potential breach of 
classified intelligence, of imminent war plans against America's 
adversaries.
  The Senate as well as all relevant authorities within the executive 
branch must investigate this incident fully. We need to know how this 
conversation was allowed to happen in the first place on an unsecured 
channel. We need to know the potential damage it could have caused our 
national security. We need to know how to prevent this from ever, ever 
happening again.
  Any Senate Republican who was up in arms years ago about emails and 
unsecured servers should be outraged by the Secretary of Defense's 
carelessness. What if Russian intelligence gained access to this text 
thread and shared it with their Iranian allies? What if the Iranians 
had shared it with their allies the Houthis--a terrifying thought, 
putting American lives, the lives of our Armed Forces, in jeopardy.
  At best--at best--Secretary Hegseth showed a colossal lack of 
judgment. At worst, he put America's national security and perhaps 
American troops in danger. Once he got caught, did Secretary Hegseth 
take responsibility for this fiasco? Did he exhibit any kind of 
leadership Americans expect from the man who may deploy our troops into 
battle, from the man who may send our family members, our friends, our 
neighbors into harm's way? Did he show how he would do things 
differently next time? No, he did not. Instead of accepting 
responsibility, outrageously, Secretary Hegseth attacked the journalist 
and called him deceitful. He took the ``deny till you die'' approach 
even though these messages were already authenticated by the National 
Security Council spokesperson.
  Secretary Hegseth's refusal to accept responsibility yesterday was 
eerily similar to the way he conducted himself during the confirmation 
process. I fear how he will react to future moments of crisis. Again, 
when Pete Hegseth came before the Senate as a nominee, Democrats warned 
something like this could happen.
  These people--Secretary Hegseth and so many others--are clearly not 
up for the job. We warned that confirming

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them was dangerous, that they would behave recklessly, and 
unfortunately--unfortunately--we were right.