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Congressional Republicans are grappling with how to respond to senior Trump administration officials’ use of a Signal group chat to discuss a military strike, with a key Senate committee requesting a watchdog probe of the matter as some in the GOP say there’s no need for further investigation.
On Thursday morning, the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Republican chair and top Democrat formally requested an inquiry and assessment by the Pentagon’s acting inspector general into the incident.
“This chat was alleged to have included classified information pertaining to sensitive military actions in Yemen. If true, this reporting raises questions as to the use of unclassified networks to discuss sensitive and classified information, as well as the sharing of such information with those who do not have proper clearance and need to know,” GOP Sen. Roger Wicker and Democratic Sen. Jack Reed wrote in a letter.
Wicker and Reed had also requested a briefing for the committee.
But several GOP senators also on the Armed Services Committee insisted that it’s “time to move on,” arguing that such an incident won’t happen again and that the Trump officials involved in the Signal chat have learned from their mistakes.
“It’s time to move on. The facts are not going to change. I don’t know that there are any more that could be revealed,” Sen. Kevin Cramer told reporters Thursday at the Capitol.
Cramer has been critical of the Signal chat incident, telling CNN on Tuesday, “this has got to be the last time something this big and dumb happens.”
“Signal is an inappropriate platform to discuss highly sensitive information. They did that, and I’m quite confident it’s never going to happen again,” the North Dakota Republican added on Thursday.
Some Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee insisted that no congressional investigation is “needed at this time” into the chat, which included Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
“I think that the secretary of defense has done a great job. If he wants to come and brief the committee, I think that’d be helpful. But I don’t see where an investigation is needed at this time,” GOP Rep. Cory Mills of Florida told CNN on Thursday.
Senate Republican Leader John Thune did not explicitly call for a stand-alone Senate investigation on Tuesday, but told CNN’s Manu Raju that he anticipates the Senate Armed Services Committee may want those involved to testify before the panel.
“I think everybody has acknowledged, including the White House, that yeah, mistakes were made. And what we want to do is make sure that something like that doesn’t happen again,” Thune said.
Senate Republicans are working to strike a careful balance over the issue. Some have said that mistakes were made, but have also been cautious not to be too heavy-handed in their criticism or confrontational toward the administration.
Speaker Mike Johnson said on Wednesday that the Signal chat was a “mistake” but that the incident has been “overblown” by the media.
“It’s been overblown, I think, by the media. I think this is a mistake. It was acknowledged as such. I’m certain it will not happen again. We move forward,” Johnson told reporters at the Capitol on Wednesday.
Democrats have been calling for accountability and pushing for an investigation into the incident, which they argue endangered national security and US troops. A number of congressional Democrats have called for Hegseth to resign.
Hegseth has said that that there was no classified information discussed in the group chat.
But CNN has reported that the information that Hegseth disclosed in the Signal chat was highly classified at the time he wrote it, especially because the operation had not even started yet, according to a US defense official familiar with the operation and another source who was briefed on it afterward.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, on Thursday said she supports an investigation into the Signal group chat and that she’s still seeking “clarification” from top intelligence officials.
“I definitely support an IG investigation on how all of these high-ranking members used a platform that is not appropriate for what they were discussing,” she told reporters, later adding, “Most of all we need to know how someone who should not have been on the call was able to be added to it.”
Collins said while Signal messages are encrypted and “safer” than other forms of communication, the use in this case by officials is “still very problematic.”
“There are a lot of issues that need follow-up, and I think that the IG is the one to do it.” Later Thursday, Wicker declined to comment to CNN on a timeline for the inspector general investigation or if he’d consider holding open hearings.
CNN’s Lauren Fox, Alison Main and Haley Talbot contributed to this report.
