White House National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said the Trump admin is ’reviewing how an inadvertent number was added’ to the Signal chat.
The Atlantic magazine’s editor-in-chief was accidentally added to a Trump administration text chat discussing the renewed campaign of U.S. airstrikes on Houthi terrorists in Yemen in the hours after the first bombs dropped, the White House has confirmed.
In a story published in The Atlantic on March 24, journalist and editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg recounted being added to a group chat on the encrypted messaging app Signal on March 15, nearly three hours before the U.S. government officially announced that it had resumed a campaign of strikes targeting the Houthis.
Recounting the incident for The Atlantic, Goldberg reported that an individual who he believes to have been White House national security adviser Mike Waltz added him to a group chat at 11:44 a.m. ET on March 15. At 2:29 p.m. ET on the same day, Trump took to his social media platform, Truth Social, to publicly announce the new U.S. strikes on Yemen.
Goldberg wrote that the Signal user who added him to the group chat, apparently unprompted, was named “Michael Waltz.”
“I assumed that the Michael Waltz in question was President Donald Trump’s national security adviser,” he wrote.
Goldberg recounted that other names in the group chat included “JD Vance,” “TG” (who Goldberg believes was Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard), “Scott B” (possibly Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent), “Pete Hegseth,” “John Ratcliffe,” and “MAR” (which Goldberg noted are the initials of Secretary of State Marco Antonio Rubio).
Responding to a request for comment from The Epoch Times, White House National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said the group chat that Goldberg was included in looked to be authentic.
“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,” Hughes wrote. “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 our servicemembers or our national security.”
Trump: ‘Don’t Know Anything About It’
When asked about the apparent inadvertent leak of sensitive national security discussions to a journalist, President Donald Trump said he had no knowledge of the episode.
“I don’t know anything about it. I’m not a big fan of The Atlantic. It’s, to me, it’s a magazine that’s going out of business,” Trump told reporters at a White House event on March 24. “I think it’s not much of a magazine, but I know nothing about it.”
Trump has previously clashed with The Atlantic in general and Goldberg in particular.
In a September 2020 article for the publication, Goldberg shared allegations from anonymous sources that Trump had made disparaging comments about World War I soldiers during a 2018 visit to a war cemetery in Paris. Current and former White House officials denied the allegations in Goldberg’s article.
Responding to Goldberg’s 2020 article, Trump wrote on social media platform X, “The Atlantic Magazine is dying, like most magazines, so they make up a fake story in order to gain some relevance.”
Recounting being added to the Signal chat earlier this month, Goldberg wrote, “I did think it somewhat unusual, given the Trump administration’s contentious relationship with journalists—and Trump’s periodic fixation on me specifically.”
Internal Discussions
As the user “Michael Waltz” addressed members of the Signal group chat ahead of the renewed strikes on Yemen, according to Goldberg, he wrote: “Team – establishing a principles [sic] group for coordination on Houthis, particularly for over the next 72 hours. 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.”
This message from “Waltz” continued: “Pls provide the best staff POC from your team for us to coordinate with over the next couple days and over the weekend. Thx.”
Thereafter, members of the Signal chat submitted names of representatives. For example, “MAR” wrote, “Mike Needham for State,” while “TG” wrote, “Joe Kent for DNI,” according to Goldberg.
The renewed U.S. strikes this month came after the Houthis threatened to resume their own campaign of drone and missile attacks targeting commercial shipping in the Red Sea and its adjoining waterways.
The Houthis—whom the Trump administration recently redesignated as a foreign terrorist organization—have said that they will continue to carry out these attacks on commercial ships as long as the Israeli military continues to fight Hamas, also a terrorist group, in the Gaza Strip.
The Red Sea represents a key international shipping lane connecting East Africa and South Asia to Europe.
Calls For Investigation Mount
The apparent leak has met with calls for an investigation.
“If House Republicans won’t hold a hearing on how this happened IMMEDIATELY, I’ll do it my [expletive] self,” Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.), a former U.S. Army intelligence officer serving on the House Armed Services Committee, said in a March 24 X post.
In a Senate floor speech, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Signal is an unsecured app that’s not approved for sensitive military operations of the kind that Goldberg was allowed to see.
“This debacle requires a full investigation into how this happened, the damage it created, and how we can avoid it in the future, if our nation’s military secrets are being held around over unsecured text chains,” Schumer said.
He said if rank-and-file government employees or military personnel had shared information in this manner, they’d face investigations and severe consequences.
Last week, the Department of Defense announced that it was launching an investigation into leaks of sensitive national security information by department employees. Pentagon Chief of Staff Joe Kasper indicated that such investigations could employ the use of polygraphed interviews and that the department could refer suspected leakers for criminal prosecution.
Speaking with reporters, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said the Senate would look into the matter.
“We’re just finding out about it, but, obviously, we’ve got to run it to ground and figure out what went on there,” Thune said.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said, “I think the administration has acknowledged it was a mistake, and they’ll tighten up and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Johnson said the renewed U.S. mission of strikes on Yemen have been a success and that “no one was jeopardized” as a result of the leak.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt likewise highlighted the renewed U.S. operations over Yemen as a success.
“President Trump continues to have the utmost confidence in his national security team, including national security adviser Mike Waltz,” Leavitt said.
Michael Walsh, affiliated researcher at Georgetown School of Foreign Service, told The Epoch Times that this incident will affect not only future intelligence collection but also the sharing of intelligence by U.S. allies and partners.
“Imagine you are an Iranian military officer, a Chinese politician, or an African National Congress official. After you hear this story, you get approached by an intelligence officer from the U.S. government or a close ally. Would you trust the U.S. government and its allies with your life?” Walsh asked.
“It could also lead to further bureaucratic compartmentalisation within our own government,” Walsh added.
Emel Akan contributed to this report.