President Trump has launched a blistering attack on the journalist who was added to a group chat by the administration’s top security officials, who then discussed top-secret war plans about an attack on Yemen.
Mr Trump called Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic magazine, “a total sleazebag” and tried to play down the significance of the security breach.
The White House had earlier confirmed that Mr Goldberg was inadvertently added to the insecure Signal chat in which leading US national security officials and the Vice-President debated and planned the military assault on Houthi rebels.
Mr Goldberg read Signal messages between Vice-President JD Vance and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth among other senior officials.. He saw details of classified military plans for the US strikes two hours before they began, including precise details of weapons packages, targets and timings.
Goldberg said he was added to the message chain, apparently by accident, after receiving a connection request from the White House National Security Adviser Michael Waltz.
Senior Democrats called the blunder “one of the most stunning military breaches of recent times” and officials involved were grilled by the Congress about their actions.
“The attacks on the Houthis have been highly successful and effective,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “President Trump continues to have the utmost confidence in his national security team, including National Security Advisor Mike Waltz.”
On 15 March the US launchedwhat it described as a “decisive and powerful” series of air strikes against the Houthis in Yemen. Four days earlier, on 11 March, Atlantic editor-in-chief Goldberg says he received the connection request on the encrypted messaging app Signal from an account that purported to be Mr Waltz’s. Signal is used by journalists and Washington officials because of the secure nature of its communications, the ability to create aliases, and to send disappearing messages.
Two days later, Goldberg said he was added to a Signal chat entitled “Houthi PC small group.” A number of accounts that appeared to belong to cabinet members and national security officials were included in the 18-person chat, Goldberg reported. Accounts labelled “JD Vance”, the name of the vice-president; “Pete Hegseth,” the defence secretary; and “John Ratcliffe,” director of the Central Intelligence Agency; were among names in the chain.
Top national security officials from various agencies also appeared in it, including Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s director of national intelligence, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Reeta Chakrabarti presents BBC News at Ten reporting by Sarah Smith in Washington.
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