WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, combat Veteran and U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL)—a member of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC)—secured a commitment from President Trump’s nominee to serve as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Lieutenant General Dan Caine, to ensure legally-required oversight and accountability of military decisions in light of SignalGate demonstrating Trump Administration officials’ deeply troubling pattern of using unclassified and unaccountable backchannels that jeopardize the safety of our servicemembers. A day after the White House declared SignalGate “case closed” and that no one on the Signal chain would lose their jobs for breaching our national security, Duckworth outlined how this Administration has been corruptly mishandling our nation’s secrets. Duckworth’s full remarks can be found on YouTube.
“The Trump Administration has shown they are more interested in keeping secrets from the American people than protecting national security secrets for the American people,” said Duckworth. “The need for secrecy to enable mission success does not mean skirting accountability to the American people. It is unacceptable that Elon Musk received invitations for briefings on China, that senior Trump officials use disappearing Signal chats to make sensitive decisions and that Secretary Hegseth brought family members into classified meetings with allies and partners. Lieutenant General Caine needs to break this cycle and provide the legally required transparency to Congress and the American people over decisions related to the use of force—and I plan to hold him accountable to ensure he keeps his word that he will.”
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Duckworth has slammed the Trump Administration for purging qualified, top military leadership including then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Charles C.Q. Brown. Since he was first nominated, Duckworth has made it clear that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is unqualified to lead our men and women in uniform. During Hegseth’s confirmation hearing, Duckworth demonstrated some of the areas where he lacks the experience or knowledge that any serious Defense Secretary nominee should have, grilling him on basic questions that he failed to answer. She asked him if he ever led an audit, and he would not confirm. She asked him to describe at least one of the main international security agreements a Secretary of Defense is responsible for leading, and he could not name any. She asked him to name at least one nation that is a part of ASEAN, an organization with several member states who have mutual defense treaties, alliances or enhanced defense cooperation agreements with the US, but none of the three countries he named are part of the organization.
After The Atlantic reported that Hegseth sent classified war plans in a Signal group chat with other Trump Administration officials, putting the lives of our men and women in uniform at greater risk and undermining the effectiveness of the mission, Duckworth released a statement demanding his resignation and calling him a “f*cking liar.”
Last week, Duckworth joined fellow SASC member Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and 14 other Senate colleagues in calling on the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), SASC and SFRC to hold hearings to investigate why members of President Trump’s national security team were recklessly discussing classified military operations on unsecured devices. In the letter, the Senators also criticized the incompetence and carelessness of how these Trump officials mishandled the situation and inadvertently added a journalist to the group chat. Additionally, Duckworth joined Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) and 12 of her colleagues in demanding answers from President Trump about what disciplinary action will be taken in response to SignalGate and emphasized that the Administration is in direct violation of the Presidential Records Act.
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