Maine’s U.S. senators pressed President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the director of the National Counterterrorism Center on Wednesday about his involvement in an unsecured group chat with other administration officials that included details of an impending counterterrorism strike last month.

Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King, who both serve on the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, questioned nominee Joseph Kent about using a commercially available messaging app to discuss the attack plans.

U.S. Sens. Angus King, I-Maine, and Susan Collins, R-Maine. Associated Press photos

A journalist with the Atlantic was accidentally invited into the chat, and his descriptions of the conversation — published after the attack took place — have prompted calls for investigations and resignations of some top defense and intelligence officials.

That chat took place on the app Signal and included Vice President JD Vance, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz. The discussion included specific details of the planned attack, including the target, timing and weapons to be used.

Kent, who is Gabbard’s chief of staff and was included in the chat, largely repeated the administration’s assertion that the information was not classified. He cited ongoing litigation as a reason he could not discuss it further.

Both Collins, a Republican, and King, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, questioned the appropriateness of discussing highly sensitive information that could compromise the safety of American troops on a commercial phone app, whether it was officially deemed classified or not.

But Kent, a former Green Beret and CIA officer, defended his use of the app.

“Signal was installed on my government phone when I received it, senator,” Kent said to Collins. “Signal has pretty adequate two-way encryption so Signal is routinely used and approved by the chain of command.”

Collins urged Kent to reevaluate that position.

“Well, I hope this is something that, should you be confirmed, you will take a hard look at,” she said. “I, too, have the Signal application on my phone, but I don’t use it to discuss highly sensitive information, and I think we need perhaps guidelines that are clearer to members of the intelligence community and the Department of Defense to make sure we don’t have a repeat of this.”

King was more forceful, accusing Kent of playing word games and getting into a heated discussion about the 2021 withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

“Telling an adversary when an attack is going to happen, you’re saying that’s not classified?” King said incredulously. “You’re just giving it a bit of semantics, but any person in this room would tell us that attack plans involving timing and weapons would be of immense value. If it had been the Houthis, instead of (Atlantic editor) Jeff Goldberg, we would have lost pilots in that strike, would we not?”

“There was no classified information, and it’s under litigation, senator, so I can’t say much more about the Signal chat,” replied Kent, who also refused to tell senators whether he was using a personal cellphone or a government-issued phone, or whether that device had been scanned for malware.

That exchange with King came after a heated discussion about Afghanistan and Russia.

While Kent pinned blame on former President Joe Biden for the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, King noted that the Biden administration was executing a deal negotiated by Trump during his first presidency — a deal he said that did not include the input of the Afghanistan government.

The chaotic August 2021 withdrawal led to the deaths of 13 U.S. service members, the wounding of 45 more and the deaths of more than 170 Afghan civilians.

Kent pushed back, saying Trump had tried to withdraw sooner but “we had members of the intelligence community, unfortunately, we had members of the media, who spread an extension of the Russia hoax, who said Putin was putting bounties on the heads of American soldiers, and that stopped Congress from allocating money.”

“Russia hoax?” King queried.

“Yes, the Russia hoax,” Kent replied. “The Russia hoax has been widely debunked.”

That prompted King to recall how Trump’s campaign manager had met with an Russian intelligence agent and shared valuable internal polling, which typically shows a candidate’s weaknesses, strengths and battleground states.

King was incensed when Kent would not acknowledge his point and continued to call it a hoax.

“You’re doing a good job not talking about that dinner,” King said. “By the way, this was found unanimously by this committee in our report on the Russian involvement in the 2016 election.”