By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2025-03-25 18:22:50 | Updated at 2025-03-29 02:55:09
3 days ago
President Donald Trump's negotiator Steve Witkoff was huddling with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin even while he was included on a Signal group chat with top security officials, according to the latest stunning revelation about it.
Witkoff was identified as a participant in the chat about forthcoming military strikes on the Houthis in Yemen that inadvertently included Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg.
Amid a national security probe and unanswered questions about security risks posed by the group chat on the commercial app, Witkoff was perhaps more exposed than any of the members. He was in Moscow on behalf of President Trump in an effort to negotiate a ceasefire in Russia's war on Ukraine.
Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet brought up the potential risk while interrogating CIA Director John Ratcliffe at a Senate hearing on global threats Tuesday.
'Did you know that the President's Middle East advisor was in Moscow on this thread while you were as Director of the CIA participating in this in this thread? Were you aware of that?' asked Bennet, after Ratcliffe accused him of mischaracterizing his earlier comments.
'Are you? Are you aware of that today?' he demanded to know.
'I'm not aware of that today,' Ratcliffe told him.
'This incompetence, this disrespect for our intelligence agencies,' Bennet fumed.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe got grilled in a Senate hearing about the Signal group chat he was a part of. Sen. Michael Bennet asked him if he knew that one member of the chat, Middle East negotiator Steve Witkoof, was in Moscow during some of the chats
'You need to do better,' Bennet lectured.
Witkoff arrived in Moscow on Thursday March 13th for the talks, which follow separate talks with the Ukrainians where they agreed to a one month ceasefire on attacks on energy infrastructure.
After waiting hours and meeting with various officials, Witkoff met with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
As it turns out, the Pentagon issued an advisory last week warning about the risks of using Signal, saying a 'vulnerability has been identified' in the app. The March 18 said Russian hacking groups were using 'linked devices' to spy on encrypted conversations, NPR reported. The trick allows them to 'view every message sent by the unwitting user.'
Although the Signal communications are encrypted, Ratcliffe said in his own testimony that it was not for use discussing classified information.
He testified that he himself did not transmit anything classified, and provided a legalistic answer suggesting any statements by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth weren't inappropriate.
'The secretary of defense is the original classification authority for determining whether something is classified or not,' he said. That could suggest that if Hegseth shared it, it wasn't classified.
'You need to do better,' Sen. Michael Bennet lectured CIA Director John Ratcliffe
Please add me to your Signal contacts: Witkoff was in Moscow meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the day journalist Jeffrey Goldberg got added to the text chain
Democratic senators tried to puncture this argument by asking questions about how information about an imminent attack, or weapons systems, or specific targets, could not be classified.
Witkoff wasn't the only member on the group chat was overseas.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who deferred to Ratcliffe for several of her own answers during testimony, said that she too was overseas during some of the chats.
She recently returned from a trip to Japan, a top U.S. ally, although her movements were likely of interest to the Chinese.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) asked the DNI if she was using a personal or a government phone on the trip. 'I won’t speak to this because it’s under review by the national security counsel,' she responded.
Reed told her it was a simple question and asked what could be under review.
She said the NSC was 'reviewing all aspects of how this came to be' and 'wha occurred within that chat across the board.'
Russia has been identified in various U.S. indictments as a hub of cyber attacks, hacks of government officials, and electronic espionage.
During his questioning, Bennet asked Ratcliffe if it was 'your testimony that it was appropriate that [Goldberg] was added to this signal thread?'
'No, of course not,' Ratcliffe responded.
The two men began talking over each other.
'Hold on senator - you're mischaracterizing my testimony,' insisted Ratcliffe.
'Can you answer the question? Let me ask you, when he was added to the thread – you're the CIA Director. – why didn't you call out that he was present on the Signal thread?
'Were you not listening at the beginning, when I said that I was using it as permitted, it is permissible,' shot back Ratcliffe.
Bennet told him that he was 'shocked to find him on a thread that he's reading in the parking lot of a grocery store in Washington, DC' about the attack, as Jeffrey Goldberg wrote that he was.
Former Biden National Security Council official Sean Savvett was unpersuaded by arguments that the information wasn't classified.
'Information about impending US military movements, particularly a combat mission flying through hostile territory, would absolutely be classified to protect the lives of U.S. forces given the threats they would face if their mission, exact coordinates, and movements were known to our adversaries (in this case Iran and the Houthis),' he told DailyMail.com.
'If the Trump administration does not think that is something that should be classified, that raises serious questions about how carelessly they regard the critical issue of troop safety.'
