Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), a former CIA officer and current member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, delivered a blistering line of questioning Thursday during a confirmation hearing for the Biden administration’s nominee for Inspector General of the Intelligence Community.
The nominee, Mr. Kevin Fox, currently serves as acting Chief of Information Management at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). He appeared before the committee seeking confirmation for a role that would make him the top watchdog for the entire U.S. intelligence apparatus.
Slotkin dug in on two central concerns during the hearing: Fox’s handling of a reported leak of classified information through Signal, an encrypted messaging app, and the suspicious timing of a recent declassification announcement connected to President Trump.
Slotkin opened her questioning by addressing the now-infamous “Signalgate” incident, in which messages exchanged on the encrypted app Signal included what appeared to be classified information related to U.S. strikes against Houthi forces. “What is your assessment of whether classified information was shared in the Signal chat exchange?” Slotkin asked.
Fox responded by stating that the Department of Defense, which he identified as the original classification authority, determined that the content was unclassified. He later admitted that he was not familiar with the specific declassification procedures used by the Pentagon. Slotkin didn’t love that information.
“If you’re going to be the Inspector General, you’re going to have to weigh in on a million of these cases when rank-and-file officers leak information,” she said, expressing concern over his inability to clearly articulate the standard protocols for handling classified material.
Slotkin went further, tying the exchange of potentially sensitive material to broader concerns about national security and institutional integrity. “It’s hard to understand how the senior officer in charge of inspections and investigations on this issue can’t speak clearly about how a potential leak of classified information is bad,” she said.
The hearing took a sharp political turn as Slotkin pressed Fox about the timing of a separate event: a declassification announcement by Tulsi Gabbard, whom Fox currently advises. The announcement, which concerned documents critical of former President Barack Obama, was made on the same day that news broke of Trump’s name appearing in the Epstein files.
Slotkin implied the timing was not coincidental. “Can you help me understand why?” she asked. “Because my 10-year-old nephew understands that that was a distraction.”
Fox attempted to deflect the criticism by referencing the lengthy process typically involved in declassifying sensitive material, asserting that the documents had been thoroughly reviewed and redacted. But Slotkin pushed back, pointing out that presidential declassifications—like the one she said occurred with Signalgate—can happen almost instantaneously.
“You just said that the Secretary of Defense could declassify something and post it on Signal,” she said. “That took seconds. And I’ve seen presidents do this. So please tell me how in four years of the Trump administration it didn’t get done, but yesterday it did.”
While Fox praised the work of the ODNI’s team and expressed appreciation for Slotkin’s service, he offered no direct answer to her underlying allegation: that political motives, not security processes, were behind recent intelligence disclosures.
Slotkin concluded her remarks with a stern warning about the stakes. “If we expect you to conduct objective investigations behind closed doors, we have to know you’re going to be objective,” she said. “Right now, I’m not convinced.”
The hearing ended without a clear commitment from the nominee on either issue, leaving questions open about both his readiness to lead and the politicization of national security processes.
