Washington, D.C. — On Tuesday, the House voted to adopt a rule preventing House members from bringing any Resolutions of Inquiry (ROI) to the floor until October. House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-WA) filed an ROI directing the Trump administration to turn over communications related to Signalgate and needed just two Republican committee members to support its consideration by the full House in order to force a floor vote on the resolution. Secretary of State Marco Rubio previously sounded the alarm about how serious Signalgate is and Republicans like Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), and Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) have called for accountability. Under the new rule, House members can’t force votes on ROIs until after September 30, 2025.
The following is a statement from Demand Progress Executive Director Sean Vitka:
“Speaker Johnson shamelessly put politics over country by making the American people and their Representatives in Congress wait until October to even be able to ask for answers about Signalgate. The Secretary of Defense and the National Security Advisor put our servicemembers and our national security in danger by discussing sensitive, imminent military plans on unsecured channels, to which Michael Waltz added a reporter, all in the interest of encroaching on Congress’s sole authority to declare war. By manipulating House rules to give Hegseth and Waltz cover and prevent accountability, Speaker Johnson is making it more likely that this happens again and possibly worse.”