Login
iscover
Share this article on:
Powered by
MOMENTUM
MEDIA
Powered by MOMENTUMMEDIA
The Trump administration accidentally leaked details of its strikes on Yemen after it accidentally added a journalist to a Signal chat.
The editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, said he was sent a connection request by a user going by “Michael Waltz”, better known as the national security adviser of the United States.
Goldberg accepted the connection request despite not believing that the user was the real Michael Waltz.
Two days later, he was then invited to a group chat called the “Houthi PC small group”, where it was revealed that the US was planning to launch strikes on Yemen. PC, in this case, refers to “principals committee”, which generally means a group of high-ranking, senior national security officials.
“Team – establishing a principles [sic] group for coordination on Houthis, particularly for over the next 72 hours,” said a message from Waltz.
“My deputy Alex Wong is pulling together a tiger team at deputies/agency Chief of Staff level following up from the meeting in the Sit Room this morning for action items and will be sending that out later this evening.
“Pls provide the best staff POC from your team for us to coordinate with over the next couple days and over the weekend. Thx.”
The request for staff was met with responses from the likes of US Secretary of State Marco Antonio Rubio, US Vice President JD Vance, and several unconfirmed users believed to be US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth.
Goldberg proceeds to outline the messages in The Atlantic, including one where Vance said that he believes: “We are making a mistake.
“Three per cent of US trade runs through the Suez. Forty per cent of European trade does. There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary. The strongest reason to do this is, as POTUS said, to send a message.
“I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now. There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices.
“I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself. But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.”
While Goldberg originally believed this was a group of bad actors pushing a disinformation campaign, the strikes that happened two days later matched information in the group chat, all but confirming that these were real messages.
Additionally, the legitimacy of the conversation was confirmed by National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes.
“This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.
“The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to troops or national security.”
The issue has been highlighted as a major security concern, with lawyers concluding that Waltz may have violated the Espionage Act through the use of Signal for planning a national security-related action.
National security lawyers speaking with Goldberg said that US officials should not be creating Signal threats at all and that national security matters should be discussed in a sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF, something most high-ranking national security officials have in their own homes. The only alternative would be to use government equipment for communication.
Additionally, Goldberg noted that SCIFs do not allow mobile phones, suggesting the operation was discussed in a public space.
“Had they lost their phones, or had they been stolen, the potential risk to national security would have been severe,” Goldberg said.
Furthermore, Goldberg noted that the messages were set to disappear after either a week or four weeks, which may be a violation of federal records law as communications about official acts are required to be preserved.
When questioned about the leak, Hegseth denied the allegations.
“You’re talking about a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who’s made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again,” he said.
“This is a guy that peddles in garbage. This is what he does.”
Be the first to hear the latest developments in the cyber industry.
