John Ratcliffe Asked Point Blank: 'Were There Any War Plans Distributed In That Signal Chat'

3/31/2025

At Wednesday's House Intel Committee hearing, Rep. French Hill (R-AR) questioned top Intel officials about Signalgate and recovering hostages.

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Transcript

00:00From Arkansas, the Distinguished Chair of the Financial Services Committee, Mr. Hill,

00:03is recognized.

00:04Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

00:05And let me say, Director Gabbard and Director Radcliffe, it's so great to have you back

00:09in the Longworth House Office Building.

00:12The food's the same, but you're welcome any time.

00:16Director Radcliffe, you know, we've served for 10 years together.

00:18I'm certainly aware of your extraordinary service at the DNI and here in Congress, and

00:23I just have a couple of follow-up questions on this topic of the signal chat.

00:28Were there any war plans distributed in that signal chat?

00:33No, Congressman.

00:34And were sources and methods that would compromise our intelligence system or your agents in

00:38the field around the world, were they discussed on the signal chat?

00:42No.

00:43I appreciate that.

00:44I just think that's an important thing to have on the record.

00:48Director Patel, I co-chair the Americans Wrongfully Detained American Hostage Task Force here

00:54in the House, and I just, in fact, left Tigran Gambaran, a former FBI official who I helped

01:01get out of prison in Nigeria last year, I just left him a few minutes ago.

01:06You've been, you know this issue very, very well, and President Trump's made such a commitment

01:11to bring Americans home.

01:12There's some 30 Americans still wrongfully detained or held hostage abroad.

01:17Is the FBI committing to work through its officials in our embassies around the world

01:22to bring those Americans home?

01:24Thank you, Congressman.

01:25And as you know from my prior service in the prior administration, President Trump brought

01:29home over 50 hostages and detainees worldwide, and that effort is being redoubled now until

01:34every single American is home, and the FBI, from my perspective, has been given a directive

01:39that any wrongfully detained or captured person overseas is a priority to bring back.

01:43We're so grateful to the President for making this a priority.

01:46We don't want our citizens that hold a blue passport to suddenly be a target in all their

01:51interactions around the world.

01:52That's wrong.

01:53And I think President Trump's made a priority.

01:54I look forward to working with you on that.

01:57Since November of 2023, I've been pursuing aggressively in this committee the U.S. government's

02:03policies and procedures for handling border encounters, specifically known or suspected

02:09terrorists.

02:10To quote former FBI directors, a testimony before the Senate, they're blinking lights

02:15everywhere of concern.

02:17But despite my numerous attempts, including multiple briefing requests, letters, legislative

02:23provisions, a GAO report requested, the prior administration refused to provide requested

02:31information and data on what the public now knows was a very dangerous situation along

02:36the U.S. borders that President Trump now has as a priority of fixing.

02:41In January 2024, there were 176,000 encounters along the southern border, with 51,000 occurring

02:47at ports of entry and 124,000 between ports of entry.

02:52Comparing that to the work just in the first few weeks of the Trump administration, total

02:56encounters are down to 61,000 along the border, with 32 at ports of entry and 29,000 between

03:03ports of entry.

03:05For the record, that's a 60 percent reduction.

03:08Director Patel, since President Trump took office in January, as we've seen these plummeting

03:12border encounter numbers, has the country seen a drop in known or suspected terrorist

03:18encounters at the border?

03:20Thank you, Congressman.

03:21It's one of the issues I really wanted to address today.

03:24And I think the country deserves to know that known or suspected terrorists, KSTs, are coming

03:29in with much less frequency at the southern border.

03:32In fact, if my information is correct, two since January 20th.

03:36And they are coming in with much greater frequency in the northern border.

03:40And since January 20th, that number is 34.

03:43And those metrics carry out over the last year in terms of ratio.

03:46So what it tells me is that known or suspected terrorists, the individuals that want to do

03:51the most harm to this country, are utilizing the northern border.

03:54And we've got to refocus assets up there.

03:55Yeah, which I think is good.

03:56And I'm glad the prior administration did declassify the ISIS arrests in Philadelphia

04:02and did declassify the citizen that was coming across the northern border to do harm on Election

04:08Day.

04:09That's good.

04:12And Director Gabbard, I need your help working with your colleagues here.

04:16It's this idea of requesting coordination between Director Patel, Secretary Nome, and

04:22the committee with fused data on known or suspected terrorists.

04:26Whether it's TSA data, BPP data, FBI internal data, we want to have that coming to us.

04:33Where are these people?

04:34What's been done with them?

04:35What is the government's position on them?

04:37Will you commit to work with us as ODNI to get this information from across the government

04:41IC?

04:42Absolutely, Congressman.

04:43And as you know, our National Counterterrorism Center was really created to fulfill exactly

04:49that task, so that we're not dealing with multiple vetting systems that are coming up

04:54with different results, that we have this central vetting database to be able to identify

05:00those known or suspected terrorists who may be trying to come into our country or who

05:04may be one of the tens of millions who illegally cross into our border, may have come into

05:11our country during the last four years.

05:13We look forward to working with you.

05:15Thank you for your answers, and I yield back.

John Ratcliffe Asked Point Blank: 'Were There Any War Plans Distributed In That Signal Chat'

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