Rep. Jimmy Gomez’s (D-Calif.) questions on Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth’s consuming habits sparked fury from intelligence leaders at a Home committee listening to Wednesday.
The Home Intelligence Committee’s annual worldwide threats evaluation listening to had been scheduled lengthy earlier than The Atlantic reported prime Trump nationwide safety officers used a Sign group chat to debate forthcoming strikes on the Houthis in Yemen earlier this month — and mistakenly included a reporter within the group.
However the breach was a central subject all through the listening to.
“A lot of questions were brought up regarding his drinking habits at his confirmation hearing. To your knowledge, do you know whether Pete Hegseth had been drinking before he leaked classified information?” Gomez requested.
“I don’t have any knowledge of Secretary Hegseth’s personal habits,” Director of Nationwide Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard mentioned when requested about Hegseth’s consuming habits.
“No, you know, no. I’m not going to answer that. I think that’s an offensive line of question. The answer is, no,” CIA Director John Ratcliffe responded when requested the identical query.
Gomez argued the query was “top of mind” for the general public.
“I have huge respect for the CIA, huge respect for men and women in uniform. But this was a question that’s on the top of minds of every American, right? He stood in front of the podium in Europe holding a drink. So, of course we want to know if his performance is compromised,” Gomez mentioned.
Ratcliffe mentioned he was aggravated by the give attention to the Sign chat as a substitute of different threats that might sometimes be reviewed within the annual worldwide threats listening to.
“We’re getting questions about whether or not someone has drinking habits. And, you know, I just wish in an annual threats hearing, where the American people want to hear about threats, that that’s what we would be talking about,” he mentioned.
Director of Nationwide Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard additionally defended Hegseth.
“Secretary Hegseth, in my experience, has continued to operate in the way that President Trump’s confidence in him inspires, which is in the best interest of the American people and our war-fighters and ensuring our national security. I think it’s wrong to impugn him, especially at a point where he is not here to defend his own honor,” she mentioned.
Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) later criticized the nationwide safety leaders for being dismissive of the give attention to the Sign chat.
“I find it offensive for you to accuse me, as a Democrat, of not caring about national threats. I very much wanted to talk about those. In fact, I had prepared questions in advance of this hearing about those threats, specifically about biosecurity and bioterrorism, but I don’t have time to ask those questions,” she mentioned, noting that the committee now needed to give attention to oversight. “I need to ask these questions. It’s my job to ask these questions of you.”
