May 02, 2025

Duckworth, Kelly and Fellow Congressional Veterans Demand Accountability for Mishandling of Classified Information by Trump Administration

 

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – Today, combat Veteran and U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL)—a member of both the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) and U.S. Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee (SVAC)—joined fellow Veteran and SASC member Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and a group of Veteran colleagues in Congress in calling out President Trump and demanding accountability for the reckless mishandling of classified military information by senior administration officials. In the letter, the lawmakers called out Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, specifically. The lawmakers warn that these actions put American servicemembers’ lives at risk and undermined the integrity of U.S. national security operations.

“This was a major security breach. There are appropriate and secure places and platforms that all officials are required to use to discuss sensitive and classified information without exposing it to adversaries. Signal is not the correct or DoD and IC sanctioned platform to discuss these matters. Longstanding DoD and IC policy has prohibited the use of unsecured devices and commercial apps for discussing sensitive information,” the lawmakers said.

As former servicemembers, Duckworth, Kelly and their colleagues emphasized the risk of this classified information landing in the wrong hands: “Had this information been released to the public, and more critically accessed by our adversaries, it could have had catastrophic consequences and resulted in American service members being wounded, captured, or killed, and mission failure. This is not an abstract or hypothetical scenario. In 2000, a Sailor on the USS Cole sent an email to his wife outlining the USS Cole’s port call schedule. This communication was intercepted and allowed the Al Qaeda terrorists in the region to orchestrate an attack on the USS Cole. This resulted in 17 Sailors killed and 39 injured and was a direct result of poor operational security."

They continued: “To highlight Secretary Hegseth’s negligence and wanton disregard for the basic safeguarding of controlled information, even more reporting came out that indicated Secretary Hegseth had an internet connection that bypassed the Pentagon’s security protocol set up in his office to use the Signal messaging application on his personal computer. This unsecured internet line can expose users to hacking and malign surveillance.”

For this reason, the group of Veterans call on President Trump to fire Hegseth: “We expect our service members to put their lives on the line, and if necessary, die for this country, and the Secretary of Defense is flippantly incurring additional risk onto their mission, with no real justification other than expediency and because it’s easier to send a text than it is to do the right thing. We implore you to fire Mr. Hegseth on the grounds that his reckless handling of classified information put the men and women serving our nation at risk and displayed a terrible judgement that will erode confidence among service members.”

In addition to Duckworth and Kelly, the letter was co-signed by U.S. Representatives Salud Carbajal (D-CA-24), Ted Lieu (D-CA-36), Bobby Scott (D-VA-03), Jason Crow (D-CO-06) and Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA-06).

The full text of the letter is available on Senator Duckworth’s website.

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