Ranking Member Coons leads Senior Democrats in demanding additional information from White House after Trump disregards mishandling classified information by defense officials

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, led a letter to the White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles asking for additional details regarding their decision to close the case on the disclosure of sensitive information after The Atlantic revealed senior Trump Administration defense officials included a journalist in a Signal group chat about plans for U.S. strikes in Yemen.

Last month, The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg published a series of articles detailing his inclusion in a Signal chat with high-ranking Trump administration officials about upcoming military strikes conducted in Yemen. Despite lawmakers on both sides of the aisle calling for investigations into the officials and circumstances around the group chat, the White House said that this "case has been closed." However, shortly after White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt made those comments, the press reported that National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and his aides used personal Gmail accounts for government business.

The senators wrote, "It is unclear to us if this White House review included the existence of additional Signal group chats, or their contents, or the use of personal email accounts for government business."

In their letter, the Senators requested that Wiles answer the following questions:

1. Did the White House review identify other instances in which Signal, or other unapproved personal applications such as Gmail, were used to conduct official business?
2. How many additional Signal group chats were created to conduct official business? What topics were discussed? Have those chats been archived in compliance with the Presidential Records Act? Were subsequent classification reviews of the material conducted?
3. What steps have been taken to ensure that the National Security Council's archives directorate has accessed all communication on Signal, or other unapproved applications, to preserve the content of these deliberations in compliance with the Presidential Records Act?
4. What, if any, disciplinary actions were taken as a result of the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive military information to a journalist?
5. Was a formal classification review conducted of the messages included in the "Houthi PC small group" Signal group chat? Did the Department of Defense and the United States Central Command concur with the proposed portion-markings contained in any classification review?
6. Did this classification review assess the risk of adversary detection of U.S. aircraft if the adversary were able to obtain the precise take-off location of inbound aircraft?
7. Is Signal an approved messaging application for the transmission of Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI)?
8. What specific steps have been taken "to ensure that something like that can, obviously, never happen again?

In addition to Senator Coons, the letter is signed by U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair; Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.); Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee; and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations (SFOPS).

Last month, Senator Coons led his fellow democratic ranking members in sending a letter to the Acting Inspectors General of the Department of Defense, the Intelligence Community, the National Archives and Records Administration, and the Department of State calling for an investigation into the matter.

You can read the full text of the letter here.