US Senator for Illinois Tammy Duckworth is one of several members of Congress denouncing the White House and demanding accountability for what they deem reckless mishandling of classified military information by senior administration officials.
In a letter, the lawmakers called out Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, specifically over their frequent use of the unapproved Signal app, which gained national attention last month when Waltz accidentally added a journalist for The Atlantic to a group chat containing minute-by-minute planning and updates on a US airstrike in Yemen.
Only a few weeks after Republican officials offered various contradictory statements about the nature of the incident, a second story broke detailing Hegseth’s continued and extensive use of Signal, which is not approved by the government for communication of classified material.
Duckworth, who lost both of her legs to an RPG while serving in Iraq in 2004, was joined last week by fellow armed forces veteran and SASC member Mark Kelly (D-AZ) as well as a group of other veteran colleagues in Congress to warn the administration its disregard for security has the potential to put American servicemembers’ lives at risk. The incidents, they argue, undermined the integrity of U.S. national security operations.
“This was a major security breach,” the lawmakers said. “There are appropriate and secure places and platforms that all officials are required to use to discuss sensitive and classified information without exposing it to adversaries. Signal is not the correct or DoD and IC sanctioned platform to discuss these matters. Longstanding DoD and IC policy has prohibited the use of unsecured devices and commercial apps for discussing sensitive information. Had this information been released to the public, and more critically accessed by our adversaries, it could have had catastrophic consequences and resulted in American service members being wounded, captured, or killed, and mission failure.
“This is not an abstract or hypothetical scenario. In 2000, a Sailor on the USS Cole sent an email to his wife outlining the USS Cole’s port call schedule. This communication was intercepted and allowed the Al Qaeda terrorists in the region to orchestrate an attack on the USS Cole. This resulted in 17 Sailors killed and 39 injured and was a direct result of poor operational security.”
The letter continues: “To highlight Secretary Hegseth’s negligence and wanton disregard for the basic safeguarding of controlled information, even more reporting came out that indicated Secretary Hegseth had an internet connection that bypassed the Pentagon’s security protocol set up in his office to use the Signal messaging application on his personal computer. This unsecured internet line can expose users to hacking and malign surveillance.”
Duckworth and her colleagues called on President Trump to fire Hegseth:
“We expect our service members to put their lives on the line, and if necessary, die for this country, and the Secretary of Defense is flippantly incurring additional risk onto their mission, with no real justification other than expediency and because it’s easier to send a text than it is to do the right thing.
“We implore you to fire Mr. Hegseth on the grounds that his reckless handling of classified information put the men and women serving our nation at risk and displayed a terrible judgement that will erode confidence among service members.”
