-9999

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, earlier today, The Atlantic magazine released a stunning and alarming report about the accidental leaking of the Trump administration's coordination on classified military operations targeting the Houthis in Yemen. According to the report, a member of the press was somehow added to an unsecured text chain with the Vice President, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, the CIA Director, and other national security officials. The text chain was not a secure conversation. The app used is not approved for discussing classified military operations. Nevertheless, on this text chain, conversations went at length about imminent military operations, including specific targets, weapons, and attack plans. These text messages very likely included classified U.S. intelligence. The entire time, nobody seemed to realize that a private citizen without security clearance had access to this conversation.

This is one of the most stunning breaches of military intelligence that I have read about in a very, very long time. What we have here are senior U.S. leaders, including the Vice President and Secretary of Defense, having classified discussions of military action over an unsecure app.

It is bad enough that a private citizen was added to this chain, but it is far worse that sensitive military information was exchanged on an unauthorized application, especially when that sensitive military information was so, so important.

If these detailed exchanges about coordinating military operations fell into the hands of America's enemies, it could get people killed; it could severely harm our military; it would put America's national security in danger.

This debacle requires a full investigation into how this happened, the damage it created, and how we can avoid it in the future. If our Nation's military secrets are being peddled around over unsecured text chains, we need to know that at once, and we need to put a stop to it immediately. Every single Senator, Republican and Democrat and Independent, must demand accountability.

If a government employee shared sensitive military plans like this, they would be investigated and face very harsh consequences. Again, this kind of carelessness is how people get killed; it is how our enemies can take advantage of us; it is how our national security falls into danger.

If you were up in arms over unsecured emails years ago, you should certainly be outraged by this amateurish behavior.

I ask that Leader Thune and my Republican colleagues work with Democrats right away to hold a full investigation into why these military operations were coordinated over an unauthorized messaging service instead of the secure communications channels funded by taxpayers.

I want to finish with this: When Pete Hegseth came before the Senate as a nominee, Democrats warned that something like this might happen. These people are clearly not up for the job. We warned that confirming them was dangerous, that they would behave recklessly. Unfortunately, we were right. Now we must have accountability, and both parties in the Senate should investigate how this blunder was even possible.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source