[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 58 (Tuesday, April 1, 2025)]
[House]
[Page H1382]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    RECKLESS INCOMPETENCE OF SIGNAL CHAT PUT SERVICEMEMBERS AT RISK

  (Ms. Ansari of Arizona was recognized to address the House for 5 
minutes.)
  Ms. ANSARI. Mr. Speaker, I rise with deep shock, concern, and outrage 
at the carelessness of the Trump administration in disclosing highly 
sensitive operational military plans on a commercial chat platform that 
included a reporter.
  Without a doubt, this reckless incompetence put our servicewomen and 
-men in danger.
  Last week, I received a call from a constituent whose son is deployed 
abroad in the region. His son's mission was personally put at risk by 
the very same people charged with safeguarding our Armed Forces who put 
their lives on the line for us.
  This Arizona father and his son sacrifice for our country, and we 
should all be ashamed that this is how their service is repaid.
  The Trump administration officials who set up and participated in 
this Signal chat debacle should have taken responsibility for their 
egregious mistake and instantly offered their resignation for having 
violated the law, contravened common sense, and put American troops in 
harm's way.
  Let me put it this way: Not only did the National Security Advisor 
set up an illegal, unsecured chat with the Secretary of Defense, the 
CIA Director, the Vice President, and others to discuss highly, highly 
sensitive and imminent attack plans, but they also bungled their way 
into adding a random person into the chat.
  We should not be surprised in the slightest that the Trump 
administration treats our Nation's secrets this way. This is the same 
man, after all, who had our nuclear codes sitting in his bathroom in 
Mar-a-Lago. The way that the administration has handled this entire 
calamity has been equally as dangerous.
  Secretary of Defense Hegseth straight-up lied. He said there was no 
classified information on the chat, that he didn't share attack plans, 
and that no troops were put in harm's way.
  Then, there is our Director of National Intelligence, who is 
supposedly our Nation's most trusted, meticulous secretkeeper, who went 
before the Senate to mislead, evade, and perjure herself. What a truly 
disgraceful episode.
  This is not a partisan issue. In fact, both the chair and ranking 
member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, in a bipartisan manner, 
requested that the Pentagon investigate the use of the Signal app to 
share classified information.
  We can all agree that no government employee, let alone a Cabinet 
member, should be sharing classified information in a Signal chat and 
be careless enough to add a reporter to it, as well. There should be a 
serious after action review to prevent this from ever happening again 
and one that considers the criminality involved.
  Yet another Trump lackey, our Attorney General, who is officially 
supposed to be the people's lawyer, is ruling out a criminal 
investigation into this scheme altogether.

                              {time}  1030

  Mr. Speaker, these are the same people that spent the better part of 
a decade looking into Hillary's emails. They evidently do not care to 
even pretend to investigate how our Nation's most secret information is 
being shared.
  The ramifications of this unmitigated disaster will be felt for 
years, even decades, to come. Why would any of our allies share 
sensitive information with us if the Secretary of Defense is just going 
to pop it into a group chat and share it with the editor in chief of a 
national publication?
  In conjunction with all of the other actions the Trump administration 
has taken to dismiss or turn our backs on our allies, I am deeply 
concerned about how Signal-gate will make us much, much less safe in 
the long term. Our Nation deserves better. Our servicewomen and 
servicemen deserve better. We deserve better.

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