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On February 3, 2026, Sen. Maria Cantwell alleged that AT&T and Verizon had not provided Congress with Mandiant assessments of their Salt Typhoon incidents—and that the carriers apparently intervened to prevent Mandiant from supplying the reports. Cantwell asked Senate Commerce Chairman Ted Cruz to hold a hearing with the companies’ CEOs. The assessments and underlying correspondence have not been made public in the sources cited here, so the claim about carrier intervention remains Cantwell’s allegation, not an independently established finding.
What Cantwell says happened
Cantwell’s February 3 letter says AT&T and Verizon had not provided her committee with Mandiant’s carrier-specific security assessments. She also said Mandiant had not supplied the reports in response to her request, apparently because the carriers intervened. Her letter asks Chairman Ted Cruz to convene a hearing with the AT&T and Verizon CEOs. Read Cantwell’s February 3 announcement and letter.
These were not a single public government report. They were assessments concerning the individual carriers. The public materials cited by Cantwell’s office describe the requests and responses, but do not include the assessments or the underlying correspondence. The committee’s July 2025 account says the carriers had confirmed that relevant assessments existed and declined to provide them to the committee.
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Cantwell said the reports could help Congress evaluate the carriers’ claims that the attacks had been contained and their networks were secure. She had sought information about remaining vulnerabilities and remediation in a June 12, 2025 letter to the carriers. In July, her office said she requested the assessments, recommendations the carriers had not implemented, and records of Mandiant’s fees and expenses.
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The committee’s February letter cites an FBI figure that the Salt Typhoon operation affected more than 200 U.S. organizations and 80 countries. It also quotes FBI Assistant Director Brett Leatherman describing the breach as “one of the more consequential cyber espionage breaches we have seen here in the United States.” Those statements are attributed through Cantwell’s letter; they are not independent findings about the present security of AT&T’s or Verizon’s networks.
What is confirmed—and what is not
- Confirmed in Cantwell’s public account: The carriers confirmed that Mandiant assessments existed, according to her office’s July 2025 account, and the committee did not receive them.
- Alleged by Cantwell: The carriers apparently intervened to stop Mandiant from responding to her request.
- Not publicly established in the cited materials: What the reports found, what remediation they recommended, whether recommendations were implemented, or why the reports were withheld.
- Unresolved: The sources reviewed do not confirm that the requested CEO hearing later took place or that the reports were subsequently released.
A contemporaneous Nextgov/FCW report said Mandiant and AT&T declined to comment and that the outlet had asked Verizon for comment. It did not independently review the assessments, so it does not resolve the questions about their contents or the carriers’ motives.
How this fits the wider Senate review
The Commerce Committee held a separate expert hearing on communications-network security on December 2, 2025, titled “Signal Under Siege: Defending America’s Communications Networks.” That hearing preceded Cantwell’s February request for testimony from the two carriers’ CEOs. A committee account quotes former FCC Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau Chief Deb Jordan saying, “I’m not convinced that providers will take sufficient and sustained actions in the wake of Volt and Salt Typhoon without a strong verification regime.” The committee’s summary of the December hearing covers that broader policy debate.
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Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Cantwell’s November 2025 policy criticism of the FCC’s handling of a January 2025 CALEA-related network-security interpretation is a separate issue from whether Mandiant’s assessments were shared with Congress. Her committee’s November statement describes that dispute; it does not independently establish what the carrier assessments said or the networks’ current condition.
Timeline of the report request
- December 2024: AT&T and Verizon publicly said their networks were secure, according to Cantwell’s July 2025 committee letter.
- June 12, 2025: Cantwell wrote to the carriers seeking information about remaining vulnerabilities and remediation.
- July 23, 2025: Her office said the carriers had confirmed Mandiant assessments existed but had not provided them to the committee. Cantwell then asked Mandiant for the reports and associated information.
- December 2, 2025: Senate Commerce held an expert hearing on communications-network security.
- February 3, 2026: Cantwell asked Chairman Cruz for a hearing with the AT&T and Verizon CEOs and alleged that the carriers apparently intervened to prevent Mandiant from responding to her request.
What the dispute means for readers
The public record establishes a congressional dispute over access to security assessments, not the assessments’ findings. Without the reports or an independent account of their contents, readers cannot use Cantwell’s allegation to determine whether the carriers’ networks are secure today, whether specific vulnerabilities remain, or whether remediation was adequate. Those questions require evidence beyond the committee’s account of its correspondence.
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