March 25, 2025 (Washington, D.C.) – Congressman Don Beyer (D-VA), who represents a Northern Virginia district in the U.S. House that includes the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency, today called for the resignations of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard, and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff in the wake of reporting by The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg that they and other Trump officials discussed military strikes on Yemen over Signal:

“This is one of the dumbest security breaches in American history, and it suggests a larger pattern of potentially criminal behavior. If the information Trump Administration officials incompetently and carelessly discussed in obvious violation of secure procedures had fallen into the wrong hands, it might have jeopardized the lives of Americans serving in harm’s way. That cannot be allowed to happen.

“The response by Trump’s people to this story has been, if possible, worse. They are attacking and discrediting the media, even after they confirmed the story themselves. They are denying, ludicrously, that the information they disclosed was sensitive or classified. And as we saw repeatedly in today’s Senate hearing, they are trying to deceive the country about the severity of this incident.

“Consider what we know. We know National Security Advisor Waltz convened what was essentially a National Security Council principals meeting via Signal, an act of extraordinarily bad judgment that may have broken the law. We know Special Envoy Witkoff participated in the same conversation while he was in Russia, where he knew his electronic devices would be targets of surveillance. We know DNI Gabbard was overseas while discussing impending military strikes using an improper messaging app, likely on an insecure phone, and then refused to answer Senators’ questions about it. We know Secretary Hegseth claimed to deliver ‘100% operations security’ as he unknowingly shared details about an upcoming airstrike with a reporter. We know that when confronted with his mistake, Hegseth chose to attack that reporter’s credibility, despite the entire story having already been confirmed by the White House. And we know that no one on this Signal, which also included the Secretaries of State and Commerce as well as the White House Chief of Staff, raised concerns that what they were doing violated security protocols.

“Now consider what we don’t know. We don’t know what sensitive or classified information may have been shared on this chat. We don’t know whether Russia or other adversaries obtained that information. We don’t know what might have happened to American pilots or other servicemembers if that information had been shared with the Houthis. We don’t know what other Signal chats Trump officials have on other sensitive topics or what security breaches may result from them. The Trump Administration is arguing that they did nothing wrong here, so no one should assume this was an isolated incident. And no one should doubt that Russia, China, Iran, and other global adversaries are stepping up efforts to target American officials.

“It is a challenge to respond to a breach this severe, but Congress and the appropriate authorities elsewhere must step up to provide necessary oversight. At a minimum, Hegseth, Waltz, Gabbard, and Witkoff must resign or be fired. There should be robust investigations by committees of jurisdiction to determine where other breaches may have occurred and take appropriate action. Republicans who fail to stand for their country in this moment will forever surrender all credibility on national security issues.

“The Inspectors General for the Departments of Defense and State should be reinstated and should investigate this matter along with the Intelligence Community IG. The Justice Department and FBI would under ordinary circumstances investigate this incident and any other related breaches and hold anyone who committed crimes accountable. Since the current leadership of the DOJ and FBI are incapable of doing that without political interference, a special counsel should be appointed to take these steps.”