‘Russia, China could have gotten...’: Democrat warns of possible deaths due to Signal chat leak

Following the leak of sensitive attack plans on a messaging app, a powerful US Senate Republican called for an official probe of the Trump administration officials on Wednesday (Mar 26). This comes following criticism that US troops could have lost their lives if the confidential information had fallen into the wrong hands.

Democrats have raised concerns that if the information fell into the wrong hands, like “Russians and Chinese”, the US would be “mourning dead pilots right now”.

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Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, said that he, along with the panel’s top Democrat, would ask Trump’s officials to expedite an Inspector General report and provide a classified briefing regarding the matter.

‘Mourning dead pilots’

Democrats have slammed Trump’s administration for downplaying the leak of sensitive details of the United States' imminent attack on Yemen rather than acknowledging the information leak.

During the House hearing, Democrat Jim Himes of Connecticut said, “I think that it’s by the awesome grace of God that we are not mourning dead pilots right now.”

“Everyone here knows that the Russians and the Chinese could have gotten all of that information,” he added.

During the hearing, administration officials insisted that the conversation over the messaging app Signal did not include classified information. When Democrats disputed, Republicans admitted that it had at least included sensitive information.

In a statement, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said that he supported Trump's national security team, praising how the Trump administration is handling the incident. However, he noted that the content of the messages does “in fact detail very sensitive information about a planned and ongoing military operation.”

The screenshots of the chats were released by The Atlantic on Wednesday (Mar 26). The chat showed that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth mentioned the start time for the planned attack. He also shared details of US airstrikes, sensitive information which would normally be kept as closely guarded secrets.

(With inptus from agencies)