--- title: Pelosi Accuses Trump of Leaking Afghanistan Travel Plans description: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the Trump Administration of endangering the security of members of Congress by leaking details of the Congressional delegation's travel plans. canonical: https://time.com/5506814/pelosi-trump-leaked-afghanistan-travel-plans/ author: Alana Abramson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-01-18T16:14:30.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-13T01:15:21.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: Pelosi Accuses Trump of Endangering Security by Leaking Afghanistan Travel Plans og:description: The shutdown fight has escalated to yet another level of ugliness og:url: https://time.com/5506814/pelosi-trump-leaked-afghanistan-travel-plans/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt52ab900fe7828cad/6989435d7cdbac067cd5ee11/nancy-pelosi-state-of-the-union-move.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: nancy-pelosi-state-of-the-union-move og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Pelosi Accuses Trump of Endangering Security by Leaking Afghanistan Travel Plans twitter:description: The shutdown fight has escalated to yet another level of ugliness twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt52ab900fe7828cad/6989435d7cdbac067cd5ee11/nancy-pelosi-state-of-the-union-move.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Pelosi Accuses Trump of Endangering Security by Leaking Afghanistan Travel Plans > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Alana Abramson](https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/)  ## Alana Abramson Updated: Dec 13, 2023 1:15 AM UTCPublished: Jan 18, 2019 4:14 PM UTC  U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi answers questions during her weekly press conference Jan. 10, 2019 in Washington, DC. Pelosi asked President Trump to postpone the State of the Union address until the government reopens. U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi answers questions during her weekly press conference Jan. 10, 2019 in Washington, DC. Pelosi asked President Trump to postpone the State of the Union address until the government reopens. Win McNamee—Getty Images  by [Alana Abramson](https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/)  ## Alana Abramson Updated: Dec 13, 2023 1:15 AM UTCPublished: Jan 18, 2019 4:14 PM UTC The shutdown fight has escalated to yet another level of ugliness. [House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s](http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/26034/political-flight-fight-trump-yanks-pelosis-plane-in-tit-for-tat-move-as-melania-jets-to-florida) office accused the Trump Administration Friday of endangering the security of members of Congress, as well as U.S. troops in Afghanistan, by leaking details of the Congressional delegation’s plans to travel to the combat zone on commercial flights. “The fact that they would leak that we were flying commercial is a danger not only to us, but to other people flying commercial,” Pelosi said Friday. “Its very irresponsible on the part of the President.” The latest development comes after President Donald Trump [publicly canceled the Congressional delegation’s use of a military plane](http://time.com/5506128/donald-trump-nancy-pelosi-afghanistan-trip/) Thursday, citing the government shutdown. That was apparently in response to Pelosi’s letter to Trump suggesting he [not deliver the State of the Union to at the U.S. Capitol](http://time.com/5504267/pelosi-trump-state-of-the-union-delay/) during the shutdown because of the increased security burden on Secret Service personnel who were not being paid during the shutdown. Pelosi demurred a bit when asked if Trump’s decision was a retaliation. “I would hope not,” she said. “I don’t think the President would be that petty. Do you?” After Trump informed Pelosi Thursday that he was grounding the military plane scheduled to take lawmakers to Brussels and Afghanistan, the delegation was still planning to take the trip, but by flying commercial, according to Pelosi’s office. “In the middle of the night, the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service provided an updated threat assessment detailing that the President announcing this sensitive travel had significantly increased the danger to the delegation and to the troops, security, and other officials supporting the trip,” Pelosi’s spokesman and Deputy Chief of Staff Drew Hammill said in a statement Friday morning. “In light of the grave threats caused by the President’s action, the delegation has decided to postpone the trip so as not to further endanger our troops and security personnel, or the other travelers on the flights.” “This morning, we learned that the Administration leaked the commercial travel plans as well,” Hammill added. On Friday morning, Trump’s Twitter feed indicated the trip might still be happening: “Why would Nancy Pelosi leave the Country with other Democrats on a seven day excursion when 800,000 great people are not getting paid,” he wrote. > [](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1086262002815766533) The Congressional delegation had planned to visit troops in Afghanistan and NATO officials in Brussels to confirm their commitment to the alliance. Trump has [reportedly](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/us/politics/nato-president-trump.html) said he wants to withdraw from NATO. “We had anticipated important defense and intelligence briefings in Afghanistan. We were looking forward to the opportunity to reassure NATO allies and those shaken by reports that the president has questioned his staff about leaving NATO,” Rep. Adam Schiff, who chairs the Intelligence Committee and was part of the delegation, told reporters Thursday evening. Lawmakers were on a bus scheduled to take them to the aircraft when the Trump administration circulated a letter to Pelosi – with inaccurate details about the travel plans — telling her he was grounding her flight because of the shutdown. But First Lady Melania Trump reportedly used an Air Force plane to fly Florida a short time later. Schiff purposely dodged questions about whether the trip was still happening, saying that he could not weigh in on the Speaker’s travel plans. “There has been far too much said about that already,” Schiff said. Pelosi said the trip would ultimately be rescheduled. “We’ll go again. We’ll go another time,” she said, noting it would have been her ninth visit to Afghanistan. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5506814/pelosi-trump-leaked-afghanistan-travel-plans/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5506814/pelosi-trump-leaked-afghanistan-travel-plans/"},"headline":"Pelosi Accuses Trump of Endangering Security by Leaking Afghanistan Travel Plans","datePublished":"2019-01-18T16:14:30.000Z","dateModified":"2023-12-13T01:15:21.000Z","description":"\"the delegation has decided to postpone the trip so as not to further endanger our troops\"","url":"https://time.com/5506814/pelosi-trump-leaked-afghanistan-travel-plans/","keywords":["Congress","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt52ab900fe7828cad/6989435d7cdbac067cd5ee11/nancy-pelosi-state-of-the-union-move.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alana Abramson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt52ab900fe7828cad/6989435d7cdbac067cd5ee11/nancy-pelosi-state-of-the-union-move.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"nancy-pelosi-state-of-the-union-move","caption":"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Holds Her Weekly News Conference On Capitol Hill","creditText":"Win McNamee—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/congress/","name":"Congress"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5506814/pelosi-trump-leaked-afghanistan-travel-plans/","name":"Pelosi Accuses Trump of Endangering Security by Leaking Afghanistan Travel Plans"}}]}] ```