Congress
‘The White House is in denial’: A Republican rejects the latest group-chat deflections
A Republican lawmaker is rejecting White House efforts to downplay the inadvertent sharing of military attack plans with a journalist on an unclassified group chat.
“The White House is in denial that this was not classified or sensitive data,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a former Air Force brigadier general and member of the House Armed Services Committee, on Wednesday. “They should just own up to it and preserve credibility.”
Bacon’s criticism is a sign that the explanations and deflections coming from President Donald Trump’s administration could be falling flat as new details emerge about the stunning disclosures to Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg.
Bacon spoke soon after The Atlantic published additional excerpts of the Signal group chat involving Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, national security adviser Michael Waltz and other top Trump aides. In those messages, Hegseth shares detailed timing, targeting and weapons information for a military strike on Houthi forces in Yemen roughly a half-hour before they were set to begin.
Hegseth and other members of the Trump administration are denying that any classified information was shared.
Testifying Wednesday to the House Intelligence Committee, Gabbard said “it was a mistake” that Goldberg was added to the chat but that “there were no sources, methods, locations or war plans that were shared.” She called it a “standard update … provided alongside updates that were given to foreign partners in the region.”
Waltz said much the same Wednesday in an X post after the new Atlantic reporting: “No locations. No sources & methods. NO WAR PLANS.”
One crucial administration ally on Capitol Hill, Senate Intelligence Chair Tom Cotton, also echoed that response Wednesday.
“There’s no locations listed there. There are no sources and methods. There’s no specific targets,” Cotton (R-Ark.) told reporters. “Certainly, there’s nothing called war plans, which was an embellishment and exaggeration by known left-wing partisan opponents of the president.”
Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, a former Army helicopter pilot, rebutted Republicans in a sharply worded X posting Wednesday: “Pete Hegseth is a f*cking liar. This is so clearly classified info he recklessly leaked that could’ve gotten our pilots killed. He needs to resign in disgrace immediately.”
Ben Jacobs and Amy Mackinnon contributed to this report.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is in the Capitol meeting with holdout GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Bill Cassidy of Louisiania as he tries to lock down their support for his confirmation as permanent leader of the Justice Department.
Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) declined to respond directly Wednesday to Speaker Mike Johnson’s refusal to denounce his former son-in-law Rep. Max Miller over abuse accusations leveled by Moreno’s daughter: “These aren’t accusations in my world,” he said.
“In my world, this is the reality,” Moreno told reporters at the Capitol. “This is not something that is theoretical to me. This is my lived reality of my daughter and my family every single solitary day.”
In an interview with Dasha Burns for Blue Light News’s The Conversation, Johnson declined to take sides in the dispute between Miller (R-Ohio) and Emily Moreno. He called for a House Ethics probe to “play out.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s expected choice for Army chief of staff faces resistance that could imperil his confirmation, according to the chair of the panel that needs to approve it.
Senate Armed Services head Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said Wednesday that he was aware of “some opposition within the committee” to acting Army chief of staff Gen. Christopher LaNeve taking the job on a permanent basis.
LaNeve, previously Hegseth’s senior military aide, was confirmed as Army vice chief of staff in January. But he has also served as acting chief of staff since April when Hegseth forced out popular Gen. Randy George, a move that drew widespread criticism from lawmakers in both parties.
Wicker said he was “not able to predict right now” if lawmakers could address concerns about LaNeve. He did not specify whether the concerns were raised by Republicans, but GOP resistance is likely given that nominees could advance through the committee on a party-line vote.
LaNeve has only held the position of four-star general for six months, an anomaly for the the senior most Army officer.
The Wall Street Journal first reported about Republican opposition to LaNeve, citing Sen. Joni Ernst’s (R-Iowa) concerns about his lack of experience at the four-star rank.
Ernst, in an interview, did not dispute that she was the source of the holdup. But she called it a moot point as President Donald Trump has not yet formally nominated LaNeve to the position. And she disputed reports that LaNeve’s lack of experience was the sticking point.
“I don’t think that time and grade has anything to do with leadership ability, so I don’t know how that came about, honestly.” she said. “That’s not what I’ve told anyone.”
If the opposition continues, Trump could decide to leave LeNeve in the acting position indefinitely.
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