Officials with intelligence information will provide an update to the Senate on the threats to national security in the United States

WASHINGTON – The top intelligence officials of the Trump administration are appearing before Congress this week for consecutive hearings. This is their first opportunity since taking office to testify about the threats the United States is facing and the government’s responses to them.

The witnesses scheduled to appear include FBI Director Kash Patel, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence. They will testify on Tuesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee and on Wednesday before the House Intelligence Committee.

The hearing on Tuesday comes right after reports emerged that several key national security officials in the Trump administration, such as Ratcliffe and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, shared plans for future military actions in Yemen via a secure messaging app with individuals, including The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief.

The annual hearings on worldwide threats will offer a glimpse of the Trump administration’s reorienting of priorities, which officials across agencies have described as countering the scourge of fentanyl and fighting violent crime, human trafficking and illegal immigration.

Former FBI Director Christopher Wray routinely has said he is hard-pressed to think of a time in his career when the United States faced so many elevated threats at once, but the concerns he more regularly highlighted had to do with sophisticated Chinese espionage plots, ransomware attacks that have crippled hospitals and international and domestic terrorism.

“We have to change to the dynamic threat landscape that is changing constantly not just in America but abroad,” Patel said in a Fox News interview that aired Sunday night, citing the elevated threat from “narco-traffickers.” But, he added, “we’re not going to forget or ignore national security — never.”

The hearings are also unfolding against the backdrop of a starkly different approach toward Russia following years of Biden administration sanctions over its war against Ukraine.

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed during a lengthy call with President Donald Trump to an immediate pause in strikes against energy infrastructure in what the White House described as the first step in a “movement to peace.”