| |
Intelligence Officials to Brief Senate 03/25 06:02
The Trump administration's top intelligence officials face Congress for
back-to-back hearings this week, their first opportunity since being sworn in
to testify about the threats facing the United States and what the government
is doing to counter them.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Trump administration's top intelligence officials
face Congress for back-to-back hearings this week, their first opportunity
since being sworn in to testify about the threats facing the United States and
what the government is doing to counter them.
FBI Director Kash Patel, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Tulsi Gabbard, the
director of national intelligence, are among the witnesses who will appear
Tuesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee and Wednesday before the House
Intelligence Committee.
Tuesday's hearing will take place one day after news broke that several top
national security officials in the Trump administration, including Ratcliffe
and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, texted war plans for upcoming military
strikes in Yemen to a group chat in a secure messaging app that included the
editor-in-chief for The Atlantic.
The annual hearings on worldwide threats will offer a glimpse of the Trump
administration's reorienting of priorities, which officials across agencies
have described as countering the scourge of fentanyl and fighting violent
crime, human trafficking and illegal immigration.
Former FBI Director Christopher Wray routinely has said he is hard-pressed
to think of a time in his career when the United States faced so many elevated
threats at once, but the concerns he more regularly highlighted had to do with
sophisticated Chinese espionage plots, ransomware attacks that have crippled
hospitals and international and domestic terrorism.
"We have to change to the dynamic threat landscape that is changing
constantly not just in America but abroad," Patel said in a Fox News interview
that aired Sunday night, citing the elevated threat from "narco-traffickers."
But, he added, "we're not going to forget or ignore national security -- never."
The hearings are also unfolding against the backdrop of a starkly different
approach toward Russia following years of Biden administration sanctions over
its war against Ukraine.
Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed during a lengthy call
with President Donald Trump to an immediate pause in strikes against energy
infrastructure in what the White House described as the first step in a
"movement to peace."
|
|
