Trump Administration Deals With Signal Group Chat Leak Fallout: What to Know
The Trump administration is dealing with the fallout of an extraordinary leak of internal national security deliberations, disclosed in an encrypted group chat that mistakenly included a journalist from The Atlantic.
In the group message among cabinet officials and senior White House staff, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth disclosed war plans two hours before U.S. troops launched attacks against the Houthi militia in Yemen. Michael Waltz, the national security adviser, inadvertently added Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, to the group chat on Signal, a commercial messaging app.
Hereâs the latest.
What has the White House said?
President Trump told NBC News on Tuesday that the leak was âthe only glitch in two months, and it turned out not to be a serious one.â
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, posted on social media that âno âwar plansâ were discussedâ and âno classified material was sent to the thread.â But Mr. Goldberg wrote that he had not published some of the messages in the thread because he said they contained sensitive information.
Mr. Goldbergâs report also raised concerns about administration officials using Signal, a nonsecure messaging platform, and setting the messages to automatically delete. Ms. Leavitt pushed back against those concerns.
âThe White House Counselâs Office has provided guidance on a number of different platforms for President Trumpâs top officials to communicate as safely and efficiently as possible,â she wrote.
After the Atlantic report, Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said in a statement on Monday that the message thread âappears to be authentic.â Mr. Hughes said officials were âreviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.â
The administration has tried to discredit Jeffrey Goldberg.
When Mr. Trump was first asked Monday about the report, he said he was not aware of the leak, but he immediately attacked the magazine.
âIâm not a big fan of The Atlantic,â he said. âTo me, itâs a magazine thatâs going out of business.â
For years, Mr. Trump has complained about Mr. Goldberg and his publication because of an article the journalist published in 2020 that said that Mr. Trump had declined to visit a cemetery of fallen American soldiers in France because it was âfilled with losers.â
Mr. Hegseth similarly criticized Mr. Goldberg on Monday, calling him a âdeceitful and highly discredited so-called journalistâ after landing in Hawaii, his first stop on a weeklong trip to Asia.
âNobody was texting war plans, and thatâs all I have to say about that,â Mr. Hegseth said.
Mr. Goldberg said âthatâs a lieâ on CNN in response to Mr. Hegsethâs comments.
Will Mr. Waltz face consequences?
Mr. Trump said Tuesday that Mr. Waltz would not face consequences after Mr. Goldberg wrote that the national security adviser had added him to the Signal chat.
âMichael Waltz has learned a lesson, and heâs a good man,â Mr. Trump told NBC News. The president said one of Mr. Waltzâs staff members had added Mr. Goldberg.
But even before Mondayâs leak, Mr. Waltz faced skepticism from inside and outside of the administration. Some of Mr. Trumpâs most conservative allies viewed him as not loyal enough to the president while some of the Republicans he formerly served with in Congress considered him too loyal.
How are both parties responding?
Democrats are furious about the report, and they are demanding investigations into the disclosure of sensitive material. Some are also calling attention to the Trump administrationâs efforts to downplay the incident, resurfacing clips of Mr. Waltz and other Trump allies criticizing Hillary Clintonâs use of a private email server as secretary of state.
Ms. Clinton posted a link to the Atlantic article on social media on Monday with an emoji of two eyes and wrote, âYou have got to be kidding me.â
Several Republicans on Capitol Hill expressed concerns about Mr. Goldbergâs inclusion in the chat and acknowledged that it was a mistake. Most, however, said they wanted a full briefing before drawing any conclusions.
Representative Brian Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, said on CNN that his panel would send an inquiry to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and then determine whether a fuller investigation was warranted. But Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, dismissed the idea of additional investigations or discipline for the officials involved.
Still, some of Mr. Trumpâs most loyal allies downplayed the incident. Sean Hannity, the Fox News host, said the story was a âsmearâ that is being âwaged by the left.â
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