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The Situation Room

Top Intel Officials Testify on War Plans Leak. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired March 25, 2025 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[11:00:17]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Welcome back to our special coverage.

We're following the very important breaking news up on Capitol Hill, the U.S. top intelligence officials testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Originally, they were called to appear and ask -- answer questions about threats facing the U.S.

The Democratic vice chairman, Mark Warner, is repeatedly asking questions about this group chat that emerged yesterday involving "The Atlantic" magazine's editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg. And other Democrats are pushing in this.

The Republican members, they're avoiding that issue completely, at least so far.

I want to go back and listen to more of this important hearing. There's Ron Wyden, the Democratic senator, who's beginning to ask some questions.

SEN. RON WYDEN (D-OR): And if so, on what other topics?

KASH PATEL, FBI DIRECTOR: Thank you. Thank you for your question, Senator, and not that I can recall.

WYDEN: OK.

Question I have for you, Director Gabbard, involves this question of Elon Musk wasn't going to see the military's China war plans because he said he -- quote -- "has business in China" and he would be susceptible perhaps to that. That was his comment.

So, as DNI, you're responsible for security clearance policies across the government. Under your watch, how are you going to go about carrying out this obligation? Because I think it obviously is a very significant one in terms of American national security.

TULSI GABBARD, U.S. DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Thank you, Senator.

As you know, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence provides oversight over these different 18 intelligence elements. Leaders within those elements are empowered with that responsibility to uphold the trust that the American people have placed in them. In this example that you have cited, both Secretary Hegseth, as well

as President Trump, completely denied the assertion that Elon Musk was going to receive any kind of classified war plan brief pertaining to China or any other country.

WYDEN: So, on the question of whether the president has the prerogative to get clearances is really the area that I want to touch on, because you're formally responsible for security clearance policies. And that's why I'm asking about them -- about it.

So can a president decide who gets the clearance?

GABBARD: Yes.

WYDEN: So what about your role? You're formally responsible for security clearance policies.

GABBARD: That is also true.

WYDEN: So how do we resolve it? The president just gets his way?

GABBARD: The elected president and commander in chief has the authority to provide a security clearance to those who he deems necessary.

WYDEN: Mr. Chairman and to the ranking member, I think we have to have a further discussion this and figure out what the ground rules are. I think it's clear what the director says. I just think we need more clarity, because I think you have the formal responsibility for security clearances.

And now we have heard that this somehow is going to be the president's project, and I think we ought to have further discussions.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. TOM COTTON (R-AR): Senator Lankford.

SEN. JAMES LANKFORD (R-OK): Chairman, thank you.

Thank you to all of you and your service to the country. It matters. There are a lot of citizens of our country right now that have much greater security in their life because of the work that you do and the people that are working around you do. So I just want to say I appreciate that for the folks in Oklahoma. They would definitely want me to be able to say thank you for your service.

Let me ask a couple of questions with this.

Director Gabbard, let me start with you on this. Iran has been listed as one of the top sponsors of terrorism for a very long time. This is -- they are the primary armers of Hezbollah, Hamas, of the Houthis. They're arming the Russians to be able to kill Ukrainians. They continue to be able to destabilize the region.

And just in the recent days, when many nations in the Gulf region have talked about how to provide greater stability, Iranian leadership stepped out and made very clear statements they want a one-state solution for Israel, and it's to drive out all Jews.

So this continues to be an issue not just for the region but for Americans in particular. So my question is on this is, is the sanctions and the effect of sanctions, what we know about the Iranian response -- under the Biden administration, those sanctions were turned down, where, quite frankly, Iran has been able to sell $90 billion in oil on the global market to be able to rearm itself and all the others around the region.

Now sanctions are now going back on to Iran again. What do we know about the effect of those sanctions?

GABBARD: Thank you, Senator, for the question. These sanctions have just begun to be reinstated, so the full effects are not yet -- have not yet borne fruit.

[11:05:06]

But the message that the president has sent with his maximum pressure campaign is certainly heard. As the chairman mentioned in his opening remarks, President Trump recently sent a letter to the leader of Iran expressing his interest in direct talks in order to try to de-escalate and to prevent war, prevent Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon, but also stated that there would be military consequences if there was no direct negotiations.

So President Trump is continuing to carry out his vision and mission of peace through strength, acting in the best interests of the American people. We will see what choices are made from here.

LANKFORD: OK, thank you.

Director Patel, during the last administration, in the very open border policy that they had, we had some years, including 2022 and 2023, where there were 70,000 individuals that were released into the country that were identified as special interest aliens.

This is something this committee and the Homeland Security Committee tried over and over again to get details on. The Biden administration was unwilling to be able to share any of the details and the special interest aliens. Led to a great amount of frustration.

The comment came often back to us is that FBI is going to track all these individuals and to be able to identify them, even though it was 70,000 a year that were coming into the country. You just walked into this position and trying to get your feet on the ground in so many different issues that are outstanding on that.

I raised to you the issue of individuals that are currently illegally present in the country going through a process, but they're listed as special interest aliens. By definition from the administration, those are individuals that we don't know their level of risk, but they're considered a national security risk, but we don't know anything else about them from there.

So how are you trying to get on top of the number of people that are criminal aliens in the country, but also these special interest aliens that come from terrorist areas?

PATEL: Thank you, Senator. I appreciate your question.

As far as the FBI is concerned, you hit on it, criminal. So we are focused across our interagency partners at DHS, ICE, CBP and elsewhere to identify through our information-sharing networks that we have stood up with state and local law enforcement to provide us the details on any criminal evidence relating to any of the individuals you highlighted.

And if there's a nexus there, a case will be open, excuse me, by the line agents who predicate a lawful and factual basis to do so. And we will further refer that matter to the Department of Justice for prosecution. We are reviewing all of these cases anew, and we will report back to you, Senator, with some fidelity on the outcome of that process.

LANKFORD: OK, thank you. Are you getting good feedback from social media technology companies and cooperation from them on illegal activities that are promoted on their site? All the different sites have rules and standards for what can and can't be done on that.

But, for instance, in the border areas, many of the sites are allowing child trafficking, or they're allowing basically the hiring of Americans to come be drivers and such, and they know this is being circumvented. Are they working with you on that to be able to take illegal content off their sites?

PATEL: Thank you, Senator.

And we have engaged directly at the top levels of all the private sector software communities and social media companies, and they have been very helpful, because they have known, they have been told that this is a priority for me at the FBI to work with them because they have so much information to share back with us.

Now, that's, of course, just on the public systems. We're not talking about the Dark Net.

LANKFORD: Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

COTTON: Senator Heinrich.

SEN. MARTIN HEINRICH (D-NM): Thank you, Chairman.

Director Ratcliffe, I want to start with you. Who determined that the content of this discussion Signal was not classified?

JOHN RATCLIFFE, CIA DIRECTOR: Senator, I guess I'm not...

HEINRICH: Well, for example...

(CROSSTALK)

RATCLIFFE: I can speak to my personal knowledge there was no classified...

(CROSSTALK)

HEINRICH: ... agent mentioned as part of this story. Normally, that would be classified information. So I guess what I'm asking is, did you just determine it was not classified or was there any declassification after the fact?

(CROSSTALK)

RATCLIFFE: So, to be clear, so everyone understands the process, as we talked about, Signal is a permissible use...

HEINRICH: I understand that.

RATCLIFFE: ... has been used at the CIA, has been approved by the White House for senior officials.

(CROSSTALK)

HEINRICH: And appropriate for many conversations.

RATCLIFFE: And recommended by CISA for high-level officials who would be targeted by foreign adversaries to use and encrypted apps whenever possible like Signal.

In this case, what the national security adviser did was to request through a Signal message that there be coordination. So you mentioned...

HEINRICH: Right.

RATCLIFFE: ... the name of a CIA active officer, correct? So...

[11:10:01]

HEINRICH: I didn't mention the name.

RATCLIFFE: You didn't mention the name.

HEINRICH: I mentioned the existence of that...

RATCLIFFE: And in the article, the implication was that somehow that was improper. That was not the case.

So a CIA officer was not operating undercover. So the request for coordination was for a staff member to coordinate on the high side. So I communicated the name of a CIA officer not operating undercover, completely appropriate, who does openly and routinely coordinate with the White House as a member of my staff.

So the intimation there that there was something inappropriate was clearly incorrect.

HEINRICH: Did it occur to you that, given the sensitive nature of this discussion, that it could just move to the high side?

RATCLIFFE: So that was clearly, Senator, I think the intent was that this was initially set up by the national security adviser with the instruction that send a point of contact, and then you will be provided with information further on the high side for high side communication.

So I think clearly it reflects that the national security adviser intended this to be, as it should have been, 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.

And I think that that is exactly what did happen.

HEINRICH: So, I'm curious, did this conversation at some point include information weapons packages, targets, or timing?

RATCLIFFE: Not that I'm aware of.

HEINRICH: Director Gabbard, same question.

GABBARD: Same answer, and defer to the Department of Defense on that question.

HEINRICH: Well, those are two different answers, but you're saying that did not -- that was not part of the conversation?

GABBARD: Not to my knowledge.

HEINRICH: The precise operational issues were not part of this conversation?

GABBARD: Correct.

HEINRICH: OK.

I want to ask you, Director Gabbard, something on a very different track here, which is, I very much agree with the conclusion of the ATA that foreign illicit drug actors are a major threat in the United States. And many of you have spoken to this today.

Is the I.C. wrong in its omission of Canada as a source of illicit fentanyl in the ATA? I was surprised, given some of the rhetoric, that there is no mention of Canada in the ATA.

GABBARD: Senator, the focus in my opening and the ATA was really to focus on the most extreme threats in that area. And our assessment is that the most extreme threat related to fentanyl continues to come from and through Mexico.

HEINRICH: So, the president has stated that the fentanyl coming through Canada is massive and actually said it was an unusual and extraordinary threat.

And that was the language that was used to justify putting tariffs on Canada. I'm just trying to reconcile those two issues. Is it an unusual and extraordinary threat, or is it a minor threat that doesn't even merit mention in the Annual Threat Assessment?

GABBARD: Senator, I don't have the numbers related to Canada in front of me at this time. I'd like to get back to you on the specifics of that answer.

HEINRICH: It's less than 1 percent of the fentanyl that we are able to interdict.

But if you have different information, I would very much welcome that.

COTTON: Senator Budd.

SEN. TED BUDD (R-NC): Thank you all for being here.

And, Director Gabbard, prior to your role here, we had a big storm in Western North Carolina. And you were among those first from outside our state to show up. So thank you for your work there. Thank you for your ongoing work there and that of your family as well. It was good to see them when out in Western North Carolina last week. So thank you.

Director Haugh, so what do we need to do in regards to Volt Typhoon? There's a lot of prepositioning that went on there. So where are we with that? And what do we need to do in regards to our power companies, whether it's generation or distribution, Duke Energy in my home state, or even the rural electric co-ops?

What do we need, what have we learned and what can I tell them?

GEN. TIMOTHY HAUGH, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY: Senator, 99 percent of the critical infrastructure in the United States is controlled by private companies. So that really drives us to talk about how do we partner with industry and with the commercial sector, in this case, the power sector.

[11:15:05]

Volt Typhoon began when industry came to the intelligence community and said, we're seeing anomalous activity. Can you help us gain context? And we were able to bring context to that to be able to understand what the threat was and then to ultimately be able to identify who was behind that threat.

Since that time, we have continued to work very closely with industry to be able to determine, what are the right ways for us to be able to pursue these threats within networks, to enable the interagency, to enable our partners and industry to be able to pursue them.

That's the approach we have to take. It is a collaboration between the government and industry to be able to eradicate these threats, and we have continued to pursue them together since our first identification and notification that we did related to this particular threat.

BUDD: Thank you.

What have you done on the offensive side here in regards to, I think there were three, Salt Typhoon, Volt Typhoon, and even Flax Typhoon. Maybe there were others, but those are the three that are known.

HAUGH: Senator, I have been given really clear guidance in terms of what the secretary of defense expects, in terms of our aggressive approach to be able to restore deterrence, and I look forward to talking with you about that in a closed hearing.

BUDD: Look forward to that.

Director Gabbard and Ratcliffe and Patel, thank you all again for being here.

So, as you're all keenly aware, Section 702 of FISA is an extremely useful authority to help keep our nation safe. I also know that we need to rebuild American people's trust and confidence that such authorities are not being misused by the intelligence community to unlawfully target Americans.

So, since taking over your respective agencies, can you tell me and tell the American people how effective the recent changes have been in protecting privacy and civil liberties of each and every Americans? And then, if you will, comment on how useful the authority is in generating intelligence that actually protects the homeland.

We will start with you, Director Gabbard.

GABBARD: Senator, Section 702, which authorizes the foreign collection of non-U.S. persons outside of the United States, continues to be one of our most effective collection tools to ensure our national security.

There are a number of reforms that the Senate passed that Congress passed last year that have proven to strengthen the protections of Americans' Fourth Amendment rights. In the short time that I have been in the seat, I have seen a few examples of that directly, most recently through the FISA court calling in an amici to come in and weigh in on a dispute regarding provisions that would further protect Americans' Fourth Amendment rights.

I will be visiting our friends at the NSA next week and doing a -- quote, unquote -- "ride-along" to observe directly how those reforms that Congress passed are being implemented to protect Americans' civil liberties and look forward to reporting back after I have had that opportunity.

BUDD: Thank you.

Director Patel.

PATEL: Thank you, Senator. With my background in FISA and 702, I just want to clearly define FISA

Title 13 and 702 collection. We need to both ardently defend its use, but also ardently support reforms that allow the American public to entrust that those charged with those capabilities are not violating the Fourth Amendment or any other violation.

Speaking of Title I, Title III, when it comes to U.S. persons, I have already included an amendment in terms of FBI language to make sure that when a U.S. person is targeted that the FBI specifically is responsible for culling through all exculpatory information that is reasonably known and satisfying that burden and stating it in the application.

When it comes to 702, Senator, some of the biggest enterprise efforts we have had to thwart national security risk would not have occurred if 702 collection had gone dark. And the FBI continues to use that information to protect the homeland. We have had multiple takedowns in the last six months based on 702 and interagency collection processes.

But we just need to ensure the American public and I'm working with my team that, even in the 702 sphere, American citizens' information is protected.

BUDD: Thank you all. I look forward to the discussion in the closed session.

COTTON: Senator King.

SEN. ANGUS KING (I-ME): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Director Gabbard, I didn't intend to get into the Jeffrey Goldberg story, but something you said has sort of puzzled me. According to open-source reporting, at 11:44 on the morning of March 15, Secretary Hegseth put into this group text a detailed operation plan, including targets, the weapons we were going to be using, attack sequences, and timing.

[11:20:08]

And yet you have testified that nothing in that tech, in that chain was classified. Wouldn't that be classified? What if that had been made public that morning before the attack took place?

GABBARD: Senator, I can attest to the fact that there were no classified or intelligence equities that were included in that chat group at any time.

KING: So the attack sequencing and timing and weapons and targets, you don't consider to -- should have been classified or were classified?

GABBARD: I defer to the secretary of defense, the National Security Council on that question.

KING: Well, you're the head of the intelligence community, and you're supposed to know about classifications. So, your testimony very clearly today is that nothing was in that set

of texts that were classified. I will follow up on Senator Wyden's question. If that's the case, please release that whole text stream so that the public can have a view of what actually transpired on this discussion.

It's hard for me to believe that targets and timing and weapons would not have been classified.

Well, let me move on. You approved this report, this annual report, prepared by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Is this submitted to the White House routinely in anticipation of its public release?

GABBARD: I don't know what you mean by submitted routinely.

KING: Was it -- well, was this report submitted to the White House before its release today?

GABBARD: It was submitted to them once it was completed, I think probably around the same time it was sent to all of you.

KING: I want to move on. One note that surprised me -- I have been on this committee now for -- this is my 13th year. Every single one of these reports that we have had has mentioned global climate change as a significant national security threat, except this one.

Has something happened? Has global climate change been solved? Why is that not in this report? And who made the decision that it should not be in the report, when it's been in every one of the 11 prior reports?

GABBARD: I can't speak to the decisions made previously, but this annual threat assessment has been focused very directly on the threats that we deem most critical to the United States and our national security.

Obviously, we're aware of occurrences within the environment and how they may impact operations, but we're focused on the direct threats to American's safety, well-being, and security.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: How about how they will impact mass migration, famine, dislocation, political violence, which is the finding, by the way, of the 2019 annual threat assessment under the first Trump administration? You don't consider that a significant national security threat?

GABBARD: For the intelligence community, being aware of the environment that we're operating in is a given. What I focused this annual threat assessment on and the I.C. focused this threat assessment are the most extreme and critical direct threats to our national security.

KING: Let me ask a direct question. Who decided climate change should be left out of this report after it's been in the prior 11? Where was that decision made?

GABBARD: I gave direction to our team at ODNI to focus on the most extreme and critical national security threats that we face.

KING: Did your direction include no comments on climate change?

GABBARD: Senator, as I said, I focused on the most extreme and direct national security threats that we face.

KING: That's not a response to my question. Did you instruct that there would be no finding in terms of climate change in this report?

GABBARD: I don't recall giving that instruction.

KING: Final questions in a few short seconds that I have left. You all concede, and it's in the report repeatedly about the cyber danger from China, from Russia, from Iran.

Why then is the administration deconstructing CISA, 130 people fired? The -- General Haugh talked about the importance of public-private cooperation. That section of CISA seems to have been disestablished. What possible policy reason is there for undermining CISA's relationship to the states with regard to elections and to the private sector with regard to cybersecurity, when the cybersecurity threat is only growing?

Anybody want to tackle that?

GABBARD: I won't speak for all of my colleagues here, but I don't believe any of us have any insight into those specific staffing decisions that have been made.

KING: Well, let me ask you this question. You have all found -- the report has found explicitly cyber -- growing cyber threats, including to elections, from Russia, China, Iran.

Do you believe that it's in the national interest to diminish our capacity to deal with those cyber issues, yes or no?

[11:25:07]

GABBARD: President Trump is focused on effects and making sure that the people that we have and the resources that we have are focused on our national security.

He and his team recognize that more people doesn't necessarily always mean better effects. Those are some of the things that are driving the changes that we're seeing across the administration, is getting all of our agencies back and focused on their core mission.

KING: General Haugh, do you agree that...

COTTON: Senator King, your time has expired.

KING: Time is up. Thank you.

COTTON: Senator Rounds.

SEN. MIKE ROUNDS (R-SD): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, thank you to all of you for your service to our country.

With regard to the issues surrounding Signal, I am going to address it, but I'm going to address it in the closed session, so that we can get more in-depth into that issue.

In the meantime, I want to direct my first question to Director Ratcliffe.

As the debate continues in Washington regarding spectrum, what can you share in this unclassified setting regarding the critical nature of spectrum to national security interests generally?

RATCLIFFE: Thanks for the question, Senator.

I know this is an interest -- an issue of great interest to the Senate and the potential auction of a commercial space on spectrum. Those -- as you correctly point out, the discussions about spectrum, I will start out by saying there are national security implications from such an auction were to take place to both the DOD and the I.C.

I think the discussions that we need to have in a classified setting, I can relate to you that the direction from early meetings that we have had is that the discussion about where that might take place would not affect specifically CIA or I.C. equities. And I hope that's the case where the discussion goes.

But I think we need to be concerned that a public auction at bands at certain levels would have an impact on our ability to deliver an accurate intelligence picture.

ROUNDS: In other words, there are parts of the spectrum which simply cannot be shared with the commercial?

RATCLIFFE: That's correct.

ROUNDS: All right. Thank you.

RATCLIFFE: And we can talk about the specific reasons about why in a classified setting that would cause a diminishment of our ability to deliver a good threat picture to the commander in chief.

ROUNDS: And in some cases life-or-death consequences?

RATCLIFFE: Absolutely.

ROUNDS: Thank you.

Director Patel, first of all, I just want to thank you for what you are doing. And I know that there's a number of items that in your previous life you did that simply can't be discussed, but, nonetheless, we have appreciated what you have done for your country already. Today, I just wanted to talk to you about we have seen a series of

public news reports about ISIS threats within the United States. And there have been several successful interdictions, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, New York.

Although the question remains asked to the total number of ISIS operatives who were able to breach porous borders in the months and years before policy changes in this January, January of 2025, to what extent is the FBI tracking operatives who remain in the United States today? And what is the FBI doing to track them down?

PATEL: Thank you, Senator. I appreciate your question and your comments.

So the priorities that the FBI since I took over have been violent crime and national security, and this speaks directly to national security. The direction for the FBI is to track down any individuals with any terrorist ties whatsoever, whether it be ISIS or another foreign terrorist organization, and now to include the new designations of the cartels down south and elsewhere.

So the FBI is utilizing our Joint Terrorism Task Force which are situated in all 55 field offices. The key to success there is our partnership with state and local law enforcement, who have the ground- level intelligence on some of these operatives.

And as you have highlighted, we have already shut down numerous threats and we have identified publicly where permissible these threats and individuals and where they're coming from. And I think the FBI is doing a very good job right now in collecting this information through our interagency process. And we will continue to thwart every bad actor affiliated with a terrorist organization or otherwise.

ROUNDS: Thank you.

And, Director Haugh, first of all, look, you have talked a little bit about -- already about Salt Typhoon. But what I want to really get into is, is the things that are moving right now that you haven't had a chance to address, and in particular Cybercom 2.0 and the need to accelerate that particular plan moving forward.

Can you talk just briefly? I have got 40 seconds left. Talk to us a little bit about how critical 2.0 is in terms of countering the cyber activity that's going on through nefarious actors.