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E-mail Xinhua, March 25, 2025
WASHINGTON, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, said on Monday that senior U.S. national security officials recently added him to a Signal group chat discussing a military strike on Houthi forces in Yemen. He said he became aware of the airstrike plan about two hours before the U.S. operation.
The senior officials' handling of the highly sensitive information has sparked widespread criticism, with Democratic lawmakers and legal experts expressing concerns over the breach of security protocols and the potential legal ramifications.
WHAT HAPPENED?
Goldberg detailed what happened in an article on the magazine's website on Monday. He said that on March 11, he received a connection request on the Signal messaging app from a user named Michael Waltz, which is the name of the U.S. National Security Advisor. But at the time, it was unclear to Goldberg whether this was the official's actual account.
Two days later, Goldberg received a notification that he would be added to a group chat called "Houthi PC Small Group."
A message to the group, from "Michael Waltz," read as follows: "Team - establishing a principles [sic] group for coordination on Houthis, particularly for over the next 72 hours," Goldberg wrote.
The term "principals committee" generally refers to a group of the senior-most national security officials, including the secretaries of defense, state and the treasury, as well as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), he explained.
Goldberg said he had serious doubts about the authenticity of the group chat because he couldn't believe that the U.S. national security leadership would discuss imminent war plans on Signal.
He also couldn't believe that the president's National Security Advisor would be so reckless as to include the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic in such discussions with senior U.S. officials, including Vice President JD Vance.
However, as the conversation progressed, he began to sense a high degree of verisimilitude.
"What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing," Goldberg said, referring to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
After the actual airstrikes happened at the same time as previewed in the group chat, Goldberg reached out to several U.S. officials in the group chat to verify whether this was a genuine Signal thread, and to inquire about why he was added to the chat, among other related questions.
"This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain," Brian Hughes, the spokesman for the National Security Council, replied.
WHAT DID TRUMP, OFFICIALS SAY?
U.S. President Donald Trump was asked about the incident by the media at the White House later Monday, and he said that he was unaware of it.
"I don't know anything about it. You're telling me about it for the first time," Trump said, adding that The Atlantic was "not much of a magazine."
The president later seemed to make light of the breach, sharing a post from Elon Musk on social media platform X that linked to a satirical article with the headline: "4D Chess: Genius Trump Leaks War Plans to 'The Atlantic,' Where They'll Go Unnoticed."
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, "President Trump continues to have the utmost confidence in his national security team, including National Security Advisor Mike Waltz."
When asked by media about this, Hegseth said, "Nobody was texting war plans. And that's all I have to say about that." The defense secretary also lashed out at Goldberg, calling him "a deceitful and highly discredited so-called 'journalist' who's made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again."
CRITICISM AND CONCERNS
"I have never seen a breach quite like this," said Goldberg in the article.
Hughes, who tried to downplay the situation, explained in his reply that "The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials" and "there were no threats to troops or national security."
Nevertheless, the incident has sparked grave concerns and harsh criticism.
Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and 2016 presidential candidate who drew intense criticism from Republicans for her use of a private email server for official public communications, tweeted a screenshot of the Atlantic article with an "eyes wide open" emoji followed by the simple message, "You have got to be kidding me."
"If true, this story represents one of the most egregious failures of operational security and common sense I have ever seen," Jack Reed, the Senate Armed Services Committee's top Democrat, said in a statement.
"Military operations need to be handled with utmost discretion, using approved, secure lines of communication, because American lives are on the line. The carelessness shown by President Trump's Cabinet is stunning and dangerous. I will be seeking answers from the administration immediately," said the Democratic senator.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer described the incident as "amateur behavior" and called for "a full investigation into how this happened and the damage it created."
"This kind of security breach is how people get killed. How our enemies take advantage. How our national security falls into danger. These people are clearly not up for the job," he posted on X.
POTENTIAL LEGAL IMPLICATIONS
Ironically, the breach comes as Hegseth's office has just announced a crackdown on leaks of sensitive information.
Signal is an open-source, encrypted messaging service for instant messaging, voice calls and video calls. The app offers greater privacy and security compared to conventional messaging services.
"The app is used primarily for meeting planning and other logistical matters -- not for detailed and highly confidential discussions of a pending military action," said Goldberg, citing potential risks of hacking.
Waltz, by coordinating a national security-related action over Signal, may have violated several provisions of the Espionage Act, which governs the handling of "national defense" information, said several national security lawyers, who were interviewed by a colleague of Goldberg.
"All of these lawyers said that a U.S. official should not establish a Signal thread in the first place," Goldberg said.
The media veteran pointed out another potential legal problem: Waltz set some of the messages in the Signal group to disappear after one week, and some after four. That raises questions about whether the officials may have violated federal records law: Text messages about official acts are considered records that should be preserved.
"Waltz and the other Cabinet-level officials were already potentially violating government policy and the law simply by texting one another about the operation," Goldberg said.
"But when Waltz added a journalist -- presumably by mistake -- to his principals committee, he created new security and legal issues. Now the group was transmitting information to someone not authorized to receive it. That is the classic definition of a leak, even if it was unintentional," he added. Enditem
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