Sen. Angus King Grills Tulsi Gabbard About What Pete Hegseth Allegedly Wrote In Leaked War Plans

3 days ago

At today's Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Sen. Angus King (I-ME) grilled top Trump Administrations intel officials about the leaked group chat about Yemen war plans.

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Transcript

00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director Gabbard, I didn't intend to get into the Jeffrey Goldberg

00:07story, but something you said has sort of puzzled me. According to open source reporting

00:12at 1144 on the morning of March 15th, Secretary Headstaff put into this group text a detailed

00:23operation plan including targets, the weapons we were going to be using, attack sequences

00:28and timing, and yet you've testified that nothing in that chain was classified. Wouldn't

00:37that be classified? What if that had been made public that morning before the attack

00:42took place? Senator, I can attest to the fact that there were no classified or intelligence

00:49equities that were included in that chat group at any time. So the attack sequencing and

00:55timing and weapons and targets you don't consider should have been classified? I defer

01:00to the Secretary of Defense and the National Security Council on that question. Well, you're

01:07the head of the intelligence community. You're supposed to know about classifications. So

01:11your testimony very clearly today is that nothing was in that set of texts that were

01:15classified. I'll follow up on Senator Wyden's question. If that's the case, please release

01:20that whole text stream so that the public can have a view of what actually transpired

01:26on this discussion. It's hard for me to believe that targets and timing and weapons would

01:33not have been classified. Well, let me move on. You approved this report, this annual

01:39report prepared by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Is this submitted

01:46to the White House routinely in anticipation of its public release? I don't know what you

01:52mean by submitted routinely. Well, was this report submitted to the White House before

01:58its release today? It was submitted to them once it was completed. I think probably around

02:05the same time it was sent to all of you. I want to move on. One note that surprised me.

02:13I've been on this committee now for, this is my 13th year. Every single one of these

02:17reports that we have had has mentioned global climate change as a significant national security

02:22threat except this one. Has something happened? Has global climate change been solved? Why

02:32is that not in this report and who made the decision that it should not be in the report

02:36when it's been in every one of the 11 prior reports? I can't speak to the decisions made

02:42previously, but this annual threat assessment has been focused very directly on the threats

02:48that we deem most critical to the United States and our national security. Obviously, we're

02:53aware of occurrences within the environment and how they may impact operations, but we're

03:00focused on the direct threats to Americans' safety, well-being and security. How about

03:05how they will impact mass migration, famine, dislocation, political violence, which is

03:11the finding, by the way, of the 2019 annual threat assessment under the first Trump administration.

03:18Do you don't consider that a significant national security threat?

03:23For the intelligence community, being aware of the environment that we're operating in

03:28is a given. What I focused this annual threat assessment on and the IC focused this threat

03:33assessment on are the most extreme and critical direct threats to our national security.

03:38Let me ask a direct question. Who decided climate change should be left out of this

03:42report after it's been in the prior 11? Where was that decision made?

03:46I gave direction to our team at ODNI to focus on the most extreme and critical national

03:53security threats that we face.

03:54Your direction include no comments on climate change?

03:58Senator, as I said, I focused on the most extreme and direct national security threats

04:03that we face.

04:05Did you instruct that there be no finding in terms of climate change in this report?

04:11I don't recall giving that instruction.

04:16Final questions in a few short seconds that I have left. You all concede, and it's in

04:23the report repeatedly, about the cyber danger from China, from Russia, from Iran. Why then

04:29is the administration deconstructing CISA? 130 people fired. The General Hawk talked

04:36about the importance of public-private cooperation. That section of CISA seems to have been disestablished.

04:43What possible policy reason is there for undermining CISA's relationship to the states with regard

04:50to elections and to the private sector with regard to cybersecurity when the cybersecurity

04:55threat is only growing?

04:59Anybody want to tackle that?

05:01I won't speak for all of my colleagues here, but I don't believe any of us have any insight

05:06into those specific staffing decisions that have been made.

05:09Let me ask you this question. The report has found explicitly growing cyber threats, including

05:15to elections, from Russia, China, Iran. Do you believe that it's in the national interest

05:22to diminish our capacity to deal with those cyber issues? Yes or no?

05:30President Trump is focused on effects and making sure that the people that we have and

05:35the resources that we have are focused on our national security. He and his team recognize

05:40that more people doesn't necessarily always mean better effects. Those are some of the

05:45things that are driving the changes that we're seeing across the administration, is getting

05:50all of our agencies back and focused on their core mission.

05:53General Hawk, do you agree that time is up?

Sen. Angus King Grills Tulsi Gabbard About What Pete Hegseth Allegedly Wrote In Leaked War Plans

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