Last month, in an article published in The Atlantic, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, claimed that he was accidentally added to a group chat with US national security leaders discussing specific war plans regarding upcoming strikes in Yemen. That same day, the White House confirmed these claims. National Security Advisor Michael Waltz accidentally added Goldberg to the encrypted group chat on the text message app Signal, called “Houthi PC small group,” with several members of Trump’s national security team, including Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and others. The texts included “the specific time of a future attack; specific targets, including human targets meant to be killed in that attack; [and] even weather reports,” Goldberg said in an interview.
On Saturday, March 15th, at 11:44 AM, Secretary Hegseth posted information to the chat regarding the targets, sequencing, and weapons of upcoming strikes against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. Two hours later, the attacks began as planned, proving to Goldberg that group chat was real.
There were eighteen individuals in the chat. According to Goldberg, the content of the chat seemed innocuous until Secretary Hegseth began to reveal the plans. Reactions from other members of the chat included American flag and fire emojis from Waltz, and more formal congratulations from Rubio. Although Trump did not seem to be in the chat, an account named “SM,” which has been presumed by the media to stand for Stephen Miller, appeared to speak for the president: “As I heard it, the president was clear: green light, but we soon make clear to Egypt and Europe what we expect in return.” Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy, has advised the president since his 2016 presidential run and is reported to be one of the most influential men in the White House.
Interestingly, JD Vance shared personal concerns about the move. “I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now,” he typed before the strikes occurred. Since becoming Vice President, Vance has been a consistent critic of Europe regarding everything from Ukraine and immigration policy to regulation and censorship. In another text, he added “I just hate bailing Europe out again.” The strikes on the Houthis were prompted by the Yemen-based group’s harassment of maritime trade in the Red Sea, which negatively impacts the European economy more than American interests.
Hegseth responded in agreement, typing, “I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC… but we are the only ones on the planet (on our side of the ledger) who can do this.” Vance and Hegseth’s remarks are the latest manifestations of the isolationist and anti-internationalist currents present in the Trump administration.
The New York Times called the story “an extraordinary breach of national security intelligence.” The incident “represents one of the most egregious failures of operational security and common sense I have ever seen … military operations need to be handled with utmost discretion and precision, using approved secure lines of communication, because American lives are on the line,” said Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.
Goldberg has speculated that Waltz intended to add someone else with the initials “JG.” One possible candidate could be Jamieson Greer, Trump’s top trade negotiator, whose input would be relevant regarding a conflict sparked by attacks on shipping routes.
“I don’t know anything about it … you’re telling me that for the first time,” said President Trump, speaking to reporters. “I’m not a big fan of The Atlantic. To me, it is a magazine that’s going out of business,” he added. “But I know nothing about it.”
On X, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, called the story a “hoax written by a Trump-hater who is well-known for his sensationalist spin.”
Hegseth denied the article’s claims, saying “nobody was texting war plans, and that’s all I have to say about that.” He also called Goldberg “a deceitful and highly-discredited so-called journalist,” who has “made a profession of peddling hoaxes.” In fact, the White House had confirmed Goldberg’s claims earlier that day.
On Wednesday, March 26th, following assertions from members of the administration that nothing in the texts was classified, The Atlantic released the entire transcript of the text messages, revealing that Hegseth specified the exact weapons used and timing of the strikes:
TEAM UPDATE:
TIME NOW (1144et): Weather is FAVORABLE. Just CONFIRMED w/CENTCOM we are a GO for mission launch.
1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package)
1345: ‘Trigger Based’ F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME — also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s)
1410: More F-18s LAUNCH (2nd strike package)
1415: Strike Drones on Target (THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP, pending earlier ‘Trigger Based’ targets)
1536 F-18 2nd Strike Starts — also, first sea-based Tomahawks launched.
MORE TO FOLLOW (per timeline)
We are currently clean on OPSEC
Godspeed to our Warriors.
Signal is a commercial, publicly available app released in 2014 offering end-to-end encrypted messaging and phone calls. The use of the app among government officials has been discouraged yet common for several years, but this incident is the most prominent controversy surrounding the app to date. A recent Associated Press report found that over a thousand government workers and elected officials across all fifty states had accounts with Signal and similar encrypted messaging apps. In 2021, Brett Goldstein, a then-Department of Defense official, was found to have violated Pentagon policy by using Signal to discuss sensitive information with colleagues. By the time the report was published, Goldstein had already announced his departure from government. A Pentagon memo from 2023 warned employees not to use the app to discuss non-public official information.
On Tuesday, March 18th, after the Houthi strikes but before the publishing of Goldberg’s article in The Atlantic, the Department of Defense released an advisory warning that professional Russian hacking groups were targeting the Signal app to spy on “persons of interest.” The memo emphasized that apps like Signal are “permitted by policy for unclassified accountability/recall exercises but are NOT approved to process or store nonpublic unclassified information.”
“As I understand it, they used an app if you want to call it an app. That’s an app that a lot of people use,” Trump told reporters. He elaborated, saying that Signal is “the best technology for the moment,” and that it is “used by the media a lot. It’s used by a lot of the military, and I think, successfully, but sometimes somebody can get onto those things. That’s one of the prices you pay when you’re not sitting in the Situation Room.”
Administration officials now face questioning from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence’s open hearing. Intelligence Chiefs Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, and John Ratcliffe testified Wednesday morning. Some Democrats have called on Hegseth to resign. Senator Roger Wicker, Republican chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has announced that he is requesting an investigation into the use of Signal by national security officials.
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