Top intelligence leaders to testify about global threats amid questions over Yemen strike report

Leaders of U.S. intelligence agencies will appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday to testify about global security threats facing the country. 

The hearing, which is set to begin at 10 a.m., will feature testimony from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, FBI Director Kash Patel, National Security Agency Director Gen. Timothy Haugh and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse.

The testimony comes a day after it was revealed that top Trump officials inadvertently included Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic, in a group chat on the encrypted messaging app Signal about the United States' highly sensitive plans to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen. Accounts appearing to be Gabbard and Ratcliffe both participated in the message thread, according to Goldberg. 

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In the group chat, which was started by President Trump's national security adviser Mike Waltz, Ratcliffe allegedly shared information "that might be interpreted as related to actual and current intelligence operations," Goldberg wrote. 

The National Security Council said Monday in a statement to CBS News that the message thread "appears to be authentic." 

While the annual hearing is expected to focus on threats posed by China, Russia and Iran, the intelligence chiefs are likely to be grilled about the security lapse. Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the committee, said the story shows the Trump administration is "playing fast and loose with our nation's most classified info, and it makes all Americans less safe." 

The intelligence officials are also set to testify Wednesday to the House Intelligence Committee. The hearings coincide with the release of an annual threat assessment from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. 

The 2024 report said the U.S. faced "an increasingly fragile global order" over the next year that would be strained by great power competition, regional conflicts and transnational challenges. 

At last year's Senate hearing on global threats, the Biden administration's top intelligence officials stressed that U.S. assistance to Ukraine was necessary for its survival against Russia's invasion and that U.S. support for Ukraine also sent a message of deterrence to China as its eyes invading Taiwan. 

President Trump, who campaigned on ending the war in Ukraine, has taken a friendlier tone toward Russia and temporarily paused intelligence sharing and security assistance to Ukraine after an Oval Office spat with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. 

He recently declined to comment on whether the U.S. would prevent China from taking Taiwan by force while he's president. 

Mr. Trump is also putting pressure on Iran to negotiate a new nuclear deal, warning that there could be potential military action otherwise.