A new report that a journalist was mistakenly added to a sensitive military discussion among top US leaders sent shockwaves through Capitol Hill and the White House on Monday.
The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg reported that he had been included without explanation in a Signal group chat on March 11 for discussing the Trump administration’s strikes on Yemen’s Houthi rebels, which were carried out on March 16.
Goldberg’s story, published on Monday, said the group was called the “Houthi PC small group” — with PC standing for principals committee. Inside, he wrote, Signal accounts representing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, State Secretary Marco Rubio, and other top officials debated plans for the strikes and shared intelligence.
The National Security Council later confirmed to multiple news organizations that the chat group was authentic.
The revelations in Goldberg’s reporting present tough implications for operational security in the Trump administration and potentially the Pentagon. Signal, an encrypted messaging app, is not an approved government platform for disseminating intelligence or classified information.
And the fact that Goldberg, the editor in chief of a magazine, was in the group chat at all points to a serious security breach. It’s still unclear what led officials to mistakenly include him in the discussion. Goldberg reported that a Signal account for White House National Security Adviser Mike Waltz had added him to the chat.
When asked about The Atlantic’s report on Monday, President Donald Trump told reporters he hadn’t heard about the potential breach.
“I don’t know anything about it,” he said. “I’m not a big fan of The Atlantic. To me, it’s a magazine that’s going out of business. I think it’s not much of a magazine. But I know nothing about it.”
Hegseth disputed the report during his Monday visit to the US Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii.
“Nobody was texting war plans, and that’s all I have to say about that,” he told reporters.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said the Trump administration was addressing the incident, but defended Hegseth and Waltz.
“Apparently, an inadvertent phone number made it onto that thread. They are going to track that down and make sure that doesn’t happen again,” he said.
“What you did see, though, I think, was top-level officials doing their job, doing it well, and executing on a plan with precision,” Johnson added. “That mission was a success, no one was jeopardized because of it, we’re grateful for that. But they will certainly, I’m sure, make sure that won’t happen again.”
When asked if Hegseth or Waltz should be disciplined for the incident, Johnson disagreed.
Meanwhile, GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas expressed alarm at the apparent breach.
“Sounds like a huge screw-up,” Cornyn told reporters, adding that he hoped the government would further investigate and that “somebody dropped the ball.”
Democratic lawmakers slam Trump administration
The leaked war plans drew swift condemnation from Democratic leaders, who criticized the Trump administration’s carelessness.
“Amateur behavior. This kind of security breach is how people get killed. How our enemies take advantage. How our national security falls into danger,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote in an X post on Monday.
“These people are clearly not up for the job. We need a full investigation into how this happened and the damage it created,” Schumer added.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries expressed similar sentiments on Monday night, writing in an X post that his party “will grill several national security officials under oath this week.”
“The arrogance and incompetence of the Trump administration is stunning,” Jeffries wrote.
Democratic Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement on Monday that the leak “represents one of the most egregious failures of operational security and common sense I have ever seen.”
“Classified war plans don’t belong in the group chat. The carelessness of Pres. Trump’s national security team is stunning & dangerous. I’m seeking answers & accountability,” Reed wrote on X on Monday.
A spokesperson for The Atlantic pointed Business Insider to Goldberg’s comments on CNN about Hegseth’s response, which the editor in chief called “a lie.”
“He was texting war plans,” Goldberg said. “He was texting attack plans. When targets were going to be targeted, how they were going to be targeted, who was at the targets, when the next sequence of attacks were happening.”
“It’s an obvious, ridiculous security breach,” he added.
Representatives for the White House, the Defense Department, and Signal did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.
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