Month: March 2025

Two of the Trump administration’s top intelligence officials have denied that classified information was shared in an encrypted group chat, which were being discussed when editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic had been mistakenly added to the conversation.

During a previously-scheduled oversight hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee with FBI Director Kash Patel, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe in attendance, Democrats grilled Gabbard and Ratcliffe about the security break, in which The Atlantic’s Goldberg was accidentally included in an 18-member group chat on the commercially available Signal app about U.S. military strikes against the Houthis in Yemen. Gabbard and Ratcliffe were in the group chat, per Goldberg. Patel declined to say if the FBI had begun an investigation.

Gabbard and Ratcliffe asserted there was no classified information included in the message chain, with Ratcliffe also stating he believed national security adviser Waltz intended the chat to be “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.”

The White House also continued to downplay the security breach, as Democrats called for the resignation of the national security adviser, Michael Waltz (who set up the group chat) and the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, who reportedly shared classified war plans in it. President Trump defended Waltz, saying in an interview with NBC News that the national security adviser had “learned a lesson, and is a good man” and suggested a staff member was to blame for including a journalist in the secret group chat.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday no classified material was sent to the group chat, and that that “no ‘war plans’ were discussed.”  Leavitt said: “The White House Counsel’s Office has provided guidance on a number of different platforms for President Trump’s top officials to communicate as safely and efficiently as possible.”

Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, the vice chairman of the panel, slammed the incident as “sloppy” and said others would have been fired for the same conduct, while House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called for an investigation, saying in a statement that the use of a non-classified text app “is completely outrageous and shocks the conscience. If House Republicans are truly serious about keeping America safe, and not simply being sycophants and enablers, they must join Democrats in a swift, serious and substantive investigation into this unacceptable and irresponsible national security breach.”

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The White House announced on Tuesday that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to a ceasefire in the Black Sea and to implement a ban on attacks on energy facilities by both countries.

Russia and Ukraine agreed to “ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes in the Black Sea,” the Trump administration said in two separate statements, after U.S. officials held separate bilateral talks with Ukrainian and Russian delegations this week in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.  Additionally, both statements said that Russia and Ukraine would stop striking each other’s energy facilities; The agreements, if implemented, could mark a major step toward a wider deal to end their three-year-long war.

One of the statements spoke about the talks with the Kremlin said the U.S. would help to “restore Russia’s access to the world market for agricultural and fertilizer exports, lower maritime insurance costs, and enhance access to ports and payment systems for such transactions.” In the second statement, the White House said the U.S. and Ukraine had agreed that America “remains committed to helping achieve the exchange of prisoners of war, the release of civilian detainees, and the return of forcibly transferred Ukrainian children.”

Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview (per Reuters) that the Kremlin could not trust Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and it would only sign a Black Sea deal if Washington issued an “order” to him to respect it:  “We will need clear guarantees. And given the sad experience of agreements with just Kyiv, the guarantees can only be the result of an order from Washington to Zelenskyy and his team to do one thing and not the other.”

The Kremlin said in a statement published by the Russian state-run news agency TASS: “In accordance with the agreement between the presidents of the Russian Federation and the United States, the Russian and American sides agreed to ensure the implementation of the ‘Black Sea Initiative,’ which includes ensuring the safety of navigation in the Black Sea, the non-use of force and the prevention of the use of commercial vessels for military purposes while organizing appropriate control measures through the inspection of such vessels.”

Zelenskyy said it was his country’s understanding that the Black Sea agreement was in effect immediately, but said in news conference he had “questions about how all this will be implemented,” and that there was “no faith in the Russians here, but I believe that we will be constructive.” Zelenskyy also noted that the statements did not specify any actions to be taken if Russia violates the terms of the agreement, adding that Ukraine would appeal directly to the Trump administration for more weapons and more sanctions against Russia in such a case.

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