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Donald Trump defended Mike Valz, his national security adviser, as the White House sought to stop a growing scandal about revealing that senior officials discussed sensitive American military operations in Yemen in the Al -Insarat Group chat.
Speaking to NBC News on Tuesday, US President said, “Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, a good man.”
Trump added that the reference to chat about the air strikes for this month on the Houthis, which is wrongly Common with a journalist“It was only a two -month defect, and it turned out that it was not dangerous.”
Waltis He faces increasing pressure to step down as a result of the chat group’s chat scandal, although Beit Higseth, the Minister of Defense, has also been criticized to exchange detailed plans on the operation against the Houthis in the chat.
JD Vance, Vice President of the United States, was another participant in the sign chat, and argued that military strikes were “wrong” because it was a rescue plan in Europe.
Anger was on the stock exchange Washington shocked The Trump administration embarrassed because it sheds light on the slope that senior officials were discussing very sensitive information about US national security on an informal messenger platform.
But it is not clear whether American law enforcement agencies will be achieved in the violation, or whether anyone will be held accountable within the administration.
On Tuesday morning, senior US intelligence officials, including the Director of National Intelligence Tolsi Gabbard, the Director of the CIA John Ratcliffe and head of the FBI, was grilled by the Democrats of the Senate Intelligence Committee on this issue.
Democrat Mark Warner, Vice -Chairman of the Committee, said that the accident was “another example of … dirty, neglected, incomplete behavior, especially towards the classified information.” He added: “This is not a one -time error, or a mistake for the first time.”
He said: “It is just a confusing reason for me that all of these adults were on this line and no one disturbed anyone until the verification (which was at stake).” “Security Health 1.0.1. Who are all names? Who are they?”
He added: “If this is the case of a military officer or an intelligence officer and they have this type of behavior that will be expelled.”
Gabbard has reduced the accident. “There was no secret information in the chat group chat,” she told Senators.
Ratcliffe said. He said: “My contacts were … in the signal messages set are completely permitted and legal and did not include secret information.”
He added that the signal was approved at the highest level and was never considered an alternative to the safest messaging platforms.
He said: “The National Security Adviser intended this.
The White House sought to reject the fermentation scandal. In a post on X, press secretary Caroline Levit said, “No” war plans “and” no classified material have been sent to the topic. ”
She added that the White House Advisor office “provided instructions on a number of different platforms for senior President Trump officials to communicate as possible and efficiently as possible.”
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