Shifting focus to CIA policies and Hegseth

CIA Director John Ratcliffe was forced to address the chat this week in previously scheduled congressional hearings on threats to the nation.

In those hearings, Ratcliffe was defiant and at times combative. He sought to put the responsibility for secure use of devices on his agency, stressing that Signal had been deemed suitable for use in certain instances by the CIA.

According to the text chain published by The Atlantic, Ratcliffe was the first to post highly sensitive information when he said that the agency was “mobilizing assets” to support the mission against the Houthis and that a delay to the operation would give them additional time to “identify better starting points for coverage on Houthi leadership.”

Ratcliffe tread cautiously on the question of whether any classified information was shared in the chats. He was careful to say that he didn’t post any classified information. When pressed by senators, he punted the ball to Hegseth’s court as to whether his message detailing strike plans could be considered classified.

”The secretary of Defense is the original classification authority for determining whether something is classified or not,” Ratcliffe said. “The secretary of Defense has said that the information was not classified.”

Ratcliffe also took a swipe at Goldberg, describing his characterization of the chat as “deliberately false and misleading.”