US Democrats move to force House vote on Signal chat leak

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Democratic lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives sought on Wednesday to force the Trump administration to hand over records related to the disclosure of highly sensitive attack plans that were shared over a commercial messaging app, according to a document reviewed by Reuters.

The lawmakers filed a resolution that - if passed by the House - would require the Trump administration to transmit a wide range of documents, messaging chats, charts, notes from meetings and telephone records related to discussion on the Signal app that included top administration officials and a journalist.

It is unclear if the "Resolution of Inquiry," seen by Reuters, would pass a vote by either the House Foreign Affairs Committee or the full House of Representatives, but it would keep alive an issue that the White House has sought to downplay since the story was published in The Atlantic on Monday.

Filing the resolution is one of the most aggressive responses yet by Democrats to the apparent security breach.

A source familiar with the resolution said it is led by Representative Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and backed by every Democrat on the panel.

Under House rules, the resolution of inquiry must be voted on by the relevant House committee - in this case the Foreign Affairs panel - within 14 days, or Democrats can force a vote in the full House.

Democrats - and some of President Donald Trump's fellow Republicans - have been demanding explanations after the news this week that top officials, including Vice President JD Vance and members of Trump's cabinet, this month discussed an imminent attack on Houthis in Yemen in a chat on Signal that included the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic.

National Security Adviser Mike Waltz has said he took full responsibility for the breach as he had created the Signal group. But on Wednesday, Waltz played down the disclosure, saying on X: "No locations. No sources & methods. NO WAR PLANS. Foreign partners had already been notified that strikes were imminent."

Trump has also played down the Yemen leak, saying on a podcast "there was nothing in there that compromised ... the attack."

Though Republicans have the votes to block the measures, Democrats view these efforts as a way to put Republicans on record and to create a potential battle cry for next year's midterm elections.

Republicans hold a slim majority in the House, and have to date hewed closely to all of Trump's policy positions.

However, some administration officials have acknowledged that adding the journalist to a sensitive military chat was a mistake, and it could be difficult for some Republicans to object to a demand for information from the administration.

(Reporting by Patricia ZengerleEditing by Don Durfee and Deepa Babington)