Republicans' calls for probe of Trump officials' Signal chat grow
Watch: Is the Signal chat leak involving Trump officials a big deal?
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Republican calls to investigate a group chat in which White House national security officials shared sensitive military information have intensified, with Oklahoma Senator James Lankford saying an inquiry would be "entirely appropriate".
Lankford stopped short of calling on officials to resign when speaking to CNN on Sunday, but joined other Republicans who have broken with US President Donald Trump over the chat.
The Trump administration has downplayed the unclassified Signal messages, in which Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and others shared potentially classified details about an upcoming attack on Yemen.
Many Democrats have demanded that Hegseth and other officials resign over the incident.
Lankford joins fellow Republican and Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker, who penned a letter earlier in the week requesting the inspector general of the US Department of Defense look into the incident.
The letter said the discussion of sensitive military information on Signal, an online messaging application, with a journalist present in the chat "raises questions as to the use of unclassified networks to discuss sensitive and classified information".
National Security Advisor Mike Waltz appears to have accidentally added The Atlantic's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, to the chat before the officials discussed the upcoming strikes.
Senator James Lankford joins fellow Republican and Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker in calling for an investigation
On Sunday, Republican senator Lankford said an independent investigation was warranted to answer lingering questions about the chat.
"One is obviously: How did a reporter get into this thread in the conversation?" Lankford asked.
"And the second part of the conversation is, when individuals from the administration are not sitting at their desk in a classified setting on a classified computer, how do they communicate to each other?"
But Lankford said calls for Hegseth to resign over the issue were "overkill".
"I think he just joined an encrypted app," he said. "I don't see it as much of an issue because, again, they all believed that this was a closed circle of conversation."
Lankford added: "I don't see this as an issue of leadership."
Lankford and Wicker are among few Republican lawmakers who have called for an investigation into the chat.
The Atlantic first reported details of the group chat after Mr Goldberg was added and followed the thread as top Trump administration officials discussed upcoming military strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen.
The magazine on Wednesday published the entire text thread, which showed the detailed and potentially classified rundown for a March air raids.
In the wake of the controversy, Waltz said he took full responsibility for the group chat. "I built the group," he told Fox News on Tuesday, adding Mr Goldberg's access was "embarrassing".
Waltz was unable to explain how Mr Goldberg came to be on the chat, but said another, unnamed contact of his was supposed to be there in Mr Goldberg's place.
"I can tell you for 100% I don't know this guy," Waltz said.
On Sunday, Mr Goldberg told NBC that Waltz had been "telling everyone that he's never met me or spoken to me - that's simply not true".
Trump called the incident a "glitch" and said that it had "no impact at all" operationally, adding that the military strike against the Houthis was a success.
But former national security officials have raised concerns that allowing this to slide could pose major risks and encourage American adversaries.
Sue Gordon, a former Trump administration deputy director of national intelligence, told the BBC's US partner CBS News that she was "glad the operation was successful. Now we need to deal with the fact that this should not have happened".
"I don't think we should rest on the fact that nothing bad happened this time," she said.
"We don't know whether that communications path has been penetrated. So we don't know whether the state actors that have lots of resources are just sitting and working now."
Those concerns have led many Democrats to call for greater accountability, with Mark Warner, the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, saying that if a military officer or CIA agent had treated classified information in a similar manner they "would be fired - end of story".
"I believe Secretary Hegseth should resign or be fired," he told CBS News on Sunday. "I think Mike Waltz should resign or be fired. If no action is taken, what message does that send to the workforce?"
Trump had told NBC News a day before that he would not fire anyone involved in the group chat, and that he still had confidence in Waltz.
"I don't fire people because of fake news and because of witch hunts," he said.
Along with Waltz and Hegseth, the chat also included Vice-President JD Vance, director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA director John Ratcliffe, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and other senior leaders.