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Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley on Wednesday called for the federal government to declassify information regarding a hack of U.S. telecommunication companies that has been linked to the Chinese government.

The breach, dubbed Salt Typhoon, included hacking dozens of phone companies and the phones of several prominent U.S. officials including President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, according to Politico. The group also potentially listened into phone conversations of large swaths of the U.S. population.

Intelligence officials have encouraged Americans to use encrypted messaging apps if they want to limit the chances of China eavesdropping or intercepting their communications, per NBC News.

Officials from FBI, the Federal Communications Commission and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency briefed the Senate on Wednesday on updates into the investigation surrounding the reported hack. 

Hawley told Politico after the briefing that the breadth of the hack was “breathtaking” and urged the Intelligence community to publicly release more information on the infiltration. 

“I think the American people need to know the extent of the breach here, I think they will be shocked at the extent of it,” Hawley said. “I think they need to know about their text messages, their voicemail, their phone calls. It’s very bad, it’s very, very bad, and it is ongoing.”

Other senators also fumed about a lack of accountability in the intelligence community regarding the hack, and claimed that the breach was the “most disturbing and widespread” telecommunications breach in world history.

“It’s the most disturbing and widespread incursion into our telecommunications systems in the history of the world, not just the country, because of how massive our telecommunications systems is,” Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said. “That’s about as bad as it gets.”

CISA Director Jen Easterly said the federal Cyber Safety Review Board, which is led by the Department of Homeland Security, would begin a formal probe into the breach on Friday. Recommendations on ways to respond to the hack are expected to come during the Trump administration next year.

Misty Severi is an evening news reporter for Just the News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.