Republicans' calls for probe of Trump officials' Signal chat grow

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 ed other Republicans who have broken with US President Donald Trump over the chat.

The Trump istration has downplayed the unclassified Signal messages, in which Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and others shared potentially classified details about an attack on Yemen.

Many Democrats have demanded that Hegseth and other officials resign over the incident.

Lankford s 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 strikes.

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":[]}