Tulsi Gabbard Confronted About 'Colossal Mistake' Of Signal Leak By Mike Quigley

2 days ago

At today's House Intel Committee hearing, Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) questioned top intelligence officials about the Signal leak.

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Transcript

00:00Thanks, Chairman. I know it's all of us who are worried about this only, but apparently

00:05the Senate Armed Services Committee Chair and Ranking Member requested Inspector General

00:10report on this chat. I'll tell you why more people are worried about this than you might

00:16think. Director Gabbard, your position was created post-9-11 because of the horrible

00:25intel failure that took place. We weren't sharing information. It wasn't adequately

00:30shared within the community and between our allies. We have to believe that our allies

00:38look at this as a colossal mistake and will at least hesitate to a certain extent wanting

00:44to share sensitive information with us that keeps us safe because they're worried about

00:51their sources and methods as well. Wouldn't you be at least somewhat concerned that our

00:56allies would look at this and say that wasn't the perfect way to communicate?

01:03Congressman, thank you for the question. If that information that was put out in the chat

01:07by the Secretary of Defense had included specific sources and methods and targets and names,

01:13then the answer would be yes, but that was not the case.

01:16Let me stop you there because I have such limited time. Generals, look, you're here

01:21because you've got tough spots, so I have to put you on the spots. You're passing information

01:26like this just within your agency, and you know that it's going to include we are go

01:33for mission launch, Houthis, C-lanes, the information about the weapons systems. That

01:43gets to the Houthi military commanders. Doesn't it make you think they're at least going to

01:49say duck?

01:53Thank you for the opportunity to weigh in on the issue. Yes, if we were collecting this

01:58on our adversaries and were able to get this information as was asked of General Hawk earlier,

02:06we would consider that classified, but it's classified under the collection piece. The

02:10data that we're talking about here is the operational data, not the intelligence data.

02:16Just because we have limited time. The Houthis military leader is going to duck when he hears

02:22this, or he's going to take some action. He's going to try to shoot our planes down, right?

02:27If he has actionable intelligence, he will certainly use it.

02:29I'm talking about this intelligence. You don't think he can figure out Houthis is mentioned

02:34a couple of times, C-lanes, they show the weapons system, at least it's a credible warning

02:41to him?

02:42I would offer the Houthis defensive position has been constant since the 15th of March.

02:47All right. General, I'll just take a whack at it. You're the Houthis military leader.

02:55You get this information passed on to you. It doesn't make you at least take warning?

03:01I would, Congressman, I think from the Houthis perspective, they do have air defense equipment,

03:08and they would be able to detect aircraft being able, when they're entered into the

03:12Red Sea, and certainly when we have our intelligence aircraft operating overtop their country.

03:18They'd be able to detect that activity.

03:22But being forewarned is extraordinarily important. I'll take another stab at it. If just language

03:30like this in a different context, okay, but just within your department, sir, your people

03:38are passing this information. Do you advise that maybe they don't use signal on this?

03:44Are there other forms? Obviously, they're going to be more secure.

03:48What I would offer is the data that we would be passing would be the full target packages

03:52and the full set of operational information.

03:54Okay, but even if it was just this, do you really want to give the possibilities that

03:59could be breached, hacked, and they would get this information?

04:04Wouldn't you, even with just this, sir, respectfully, wouldn't you want to use a more secure means

04:10of communicating?

04:13I think what I would offer are two things, and hopefully they're helpful to you.

04:16One of them would be, in addition to that full package that we would talk about, when

04:21the Secretary extracted individual details from that and provided those on signal, whether

04:27individually or in aggregate, that is his decision of what is classified and what is

04:31not from an operational aspect. And that's probably the most important relevant piece

04:36to there, and I would echo what we've said before. It's the Secretary's authority for

04:41the...

04:43Just give me, there's more secure ways of communicating any of this, right?

04:47There are, and our adversaries have various ways to intercept.

04:51There's much more secure means that you use, even if you don't think that this is, or you

04:56don't want to stick your head on it.

04:59What I would say is the full packages were transmitted within classified, within traditional

05:06classified...

05:07But this could have been transmitted in a classified way as well. Thank you.

Tulsi Gabbard Confronted About 'Colossal Mistake' Of Signal Leak By Mike Quigley

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