Washington DC - Taylor Swift was unexpectedly name-dropped in a Senate hearing discussing the recent security breach that involved a reporter being accidentally added to a group chat discussing plans for a strike on Yemen.

On Tuesday, Senators grilled several top intelligence officials in President Donald Trump's administration over the scandal, which was revealed on Monday.

Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia was the one to reference the 35-year-old pop star during the hearing, recalling the cancellation of three of her shows on The Eras Tour after a terrorist plot had been uncovered.

"That sharing of information saves lives, and it's not hypothetical – we all remember, because it was declassified – last year when Austria worked with our community to make sure to expose a plot against Taylor Swift in Vienna that could have killed literally hundreds of individuals," Warner said.

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Along with discussing plans for the strikes, the Signal group chat featured texts from Vice President JD Vance disparaging Europe, which led Warner to emphasize the importance of allyship with European nations like Austria in order to promote the exchange of information – something that proved vital in the case of Swift's performances.

She shared a statement after completing the full European leg of The Eras Tour, writing, "Let me be very clear: I am not going to speak about something publicly if I think doing so might provoke those who would want to harm the fans who come to my shows."

While Swift admitted she had a "new sense of fear" after the plot was discovered, she was "so grateful to the authorities because thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives."

The CIA later revealed that the suspects had planned to kill "tens of thousands" of fans attending the sold-out performances before the US foreign intelligence service shared information on the plot with Austrian authorities.