TTO GRAPHICS
Few could have foreseen that the most dramatic national security breach of recent times would unfold in a group chat.
Days before U.S. forces unleashed strikes on Iran-backed Houthi targets in Yemen, top Trump administration officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice-President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, were huddled in a Signal messaging group, “Houthi PC small group.”
There, behind the supposed veil of encryption, they coordinated military action. The only problem? The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was inadvertently added to the chat.
The magazine’s Monday report, based on Goldberg’s firsthand access to the conversation, laid bare what was either an act of jaw-dropping negligence or a rare peek into the unfiltered backchannels of US war strategy.
The National Security Council confirmed, rather than denied, the blunder.
“At this time, the message thread that was reported appears to be authentic, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” NSC spokesperson Brian Hughes said.
According to The Atlantic,editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was invited into the chat by Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser.
Just two hours before US airstrikes commenced on March 15, the journalist received details of the attack—information that typically remains under layers of classified security.
The specifics included target locations, weapons deployment, and attack sequencing.
According to screenshots of the chat reported by The Atlantic, officials in the group debated whether the U.S. should carry out the strikes, and at one point Vance appeared to question whether U.S. allies in Europe, more exposed to shipping disruption in the region, deserved U.S. help.
"@PeteHegseth if you think we should do it let's go," a person identified as Vance wrote. "I just hate bailing Europe out again," the person wrote, adding: "Let's just make sure our messaging is tight here."
A person identified as Hegseth replied: "VP: I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It's PATHETIC."
Trump’s initial response to this incident followed a familiar pattern.
First, feign ignorance. “I don’t know anything about it. You’re telling me about it for the first time,” he told reporters.
He added that The Atlantic was “not much of a magazine.”
By Monday evening, he was making light of the situation, amplifying an X post from Elon Musk featuring a satirical news site’s headline: “4D Chess: Genius Trump Leaks War Plans to The Atlantic Where No One Will Ever See Them.”
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, on the other hand, lashed out at Goldberg as “a deceitful, discredited so-called journalist.”
He offered no explanation for why a high-level security discussion was taking place on Signal or how Goldberg ended up in the chat. “Nobody was texting war plans and that's all I have to say about that,” Hegseth said in an exchange with reporters after landing in Hawaii on Monday as he makes his way to the Asia Pacific on his first overseas trip as defense secretary.
The Signal Paradox
That such an intelligence mishap occurred on an unclassified app raises uncomfortable questions.
Government officials have used Signal for organisational correspondence, but it is not classified and can be hacked. Privacy and tech experts say the popular end-to-end encrypted messaging and voice call app is more secure than conventional texting.
A former national security official from the Biden era disclosed, Signal was mostly used for “tippers”—alerts that directed officials to check classified systems for actual intelligence.
The official, who requested anonymity to speak about methods used to share sensitive information, said Signal was most commonly used to communicate what they internally referred to as “tippers” to notify someone when they were away from the office or travelling overseas that they should check their “high side” inbox for a classified message.
Democratic lawmakers have already condemned the security lapse.
Just a day before the war plan leak expose, Gabbard had posted on X: “Any unauthorized release of classified information is a violation of the law and will be treated as such.”
Perhaps she hadn’t checked her own Signal notifications yet.
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