March 24, 2025 - 8:30pm
Washington, the White House, and the entirety of the US military and intelligence community were stunned on Monday by Jeffrey Goldberg’s reporting that he was added, apparently accidentally, to a Trump administration group chat involving plans to strike the Houthis in Yemen.
The Atlantic‘s editor-in-chief found himself in a group chat alongside 17 others including Vice President JD Vance, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
Led by Hegseth, the chat involved discussions in the days and hours preceding US military strikes on the Houthi rebels earlier this month. As I noted on X, the use of Signal to discuss highly classified military plans carries a number of key security concerns. Most obviously, had a less national security-minded individual been added to the group, US naval aviators might have been put at risk.
Some commentators are suggesting that Goldberg might have been added to the group deliberately in order to pressure European powers to provide greater support for US actions against the Houthis. The text chain includes heavy criticism of Europe’s reliance on the US military to protect a shipping route that is of far greater trade value to Europe than it is to the United States.
The best evidence in favour of this supposition is Vice President JD Vance’s criticism of President Trump. As Vance put it: “I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now”. But considering Trump’s notoriously low tolerance for criticism, it seems highly unlikely that Vance would use such critical rhetoric in a group chat involving so many individuals. At a minimum, Trump would surely not want to be perceived by international audiences as suffering the doubts of his top deputies.
Further evidence against a deliberate leak comes via the real risk of legal jeopardy for those who were sharing classified information in the chat. Even if there was some perception that a controlled leak to Goldberg would be beneficial to the administration, the legal jeopardy concern would seem to far outweigh that possible benefit.
After all, by detailing in-depth military plans for strikes, Hegseth strongly appears to have mishandled classified information. Had a more junior intelligence or military officer shared this information over an unclassified system, they would almost certainly be fired. That would be the bare minimum. They would also very likely face FBI investigation and prosecution. Tulsi Gabbard only last week threatened serious consequences for those who are suspected of leaking classified information.
The extension of this double standards concern extends to the controversy over Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email server to discuss classified information during her time as Secretary of State. Conservatives were rightly furious in their condemnation of Clinton’s mishandling of classified information. For the Trump administration to now pretend that this Signal chat escapade is somehow acceptable would represent a soaring summit of hypocrisy.
Ultimately, this leak reeks far more of incompetence than it does some strange plot to somehow deliver an uncertain publicity victory for the administration. The negative publicity this leak has entailed, including from top Republicans on Capitol Hill, is significant. It also suggests disregard for the protection of key national security interests, and will generate aggressive activity by hostile foreign intelligence services to fish for other classified conversations by Trump administration officials. This is a hugely embarrassing episode — and one that should come with consequences.
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SubscribeHanlon’s Razor – never attribute to malice that which can more readily explained by stupidity. In this case the level of stupidity is jaw dropping.
In the ‘Real World’ the appearance of stupidity is the smoke and mirrors used to try and hide the real reason of almost everything the government do.
Covid?
Iraq?
Afghanistan?
Mass illegal immigration?
Ukraine?
Deindustrializing?
National Debt?
The Snow White Movie?
and for fun and irony – the Education Industry making the children more stupid for every increased $ they spend; and pretending that was not the goal all along.
No, Hanlon’s razor is very rarely the case – mostly it is malice.
But till Mike Benz covers it – or Scott Ritter explains it, it looks like several possibilities – I mean the bombing was a bad idea and this gives some cover – and maybe Pete is out of favor (justly so) and this could be used to show him the door – and so on….
The idea that this is deliberate is laughable
Scott Ritter? The fat paedophile grifter? Presumably you meant someone else.
There is no way to wiggle out of this one, unfortunately. For fans of this administration, this is an ugly lump, and some accountability should be in order. If we get loads of excuses and spin, then it just feels like the previous administration all over again. I hope trump sets an example and lays the hammer down.
As I’ve said, there will be good and bad, and we have to take the bad with the good. This is bad, and it needs to be handled in a way that represents the Republican party, which is personal responsibility and accountability. Pretending this is some purposeful leak is just disingenuous.
Tulsi Gabbard, having been on the job a month, can’t seem to recall much of the past four weeks. She’s a nincompoop, window dressing, like “Plastered Pete”, on a display of incompetence. Imagine using signal in Moscow for secure comms. Anyone who implies this is 5D chess is enjoying a ketamine cocktail.
Dishing out the usual hyperbolic hysteria from the Left. It’s boring, please stop it.
This has absolutely nothing to do with “the Left”. I tell you what is even more boring: the pro Trump TDS lot, who can’t bear a singular of criticism going to him or his administration however much evidence there might be of incompetence or however much they might be falling out among themselves.
Hegseth’s razor could explain it – don’t attribute to stupidity what could be due to alcoholism.
Conspiratorial almost unintelligible ravings. So now the Trump administration is part of the Deep State too!
You’re right, it’s stupidity. This bunch of morons make Col. Oliver North (remember him?) look like James Bond.
Just out of interest, what makes you think Oliver North was a moron?
…and actionable surely?
Not actionable, in my opinion. I don’t think any of the conversation that was printed in the Atlantic article broke any law or regulation. It was just informal opinion.
And the part that wasn’t printed was posted by Pete Hegseth, and he is an “original classification authority” who has a lot of latitude in deciding what can be disclosed to whom.
Not to mention that this was all informal shop talk between top officials that should be encouraged rather than stifled. Had the formalities been strictly observed, this conversation would not have taken place.
And that would be a shame. It’s nice to see a disagreement on foreign policy being hashed out in real time instead of people just adhering to the party line. These leaders do what they say. That’s refreshing.
Lols.
Surely the other possibility is that the leak was engineered by anti-Trump activists within the administration to embarrass senior officials. Even a lowly tech support person could have engineered this inappropriate inclusion of Jeff Goldberg.
They shouldn’t have been using a Signal group chat in the first place.
I would honestly not be surprised if they ironically assumed normal classified channels would have been susceptible to leakage. It has been a normal fact of Washington life for decades that someone somewhere is going to release classified information for political gain (or just make stuff up and claim it is a leak). This does not even get into how recklessly classified information is handled and how everything is vastly over classified. I can think of prominent examples going back to Bush and Clinton.
Which is one of the reasons why they should have been using secure communications…
Which secure communications?
Personally I’d like to see the whole lot of them get fired.
Would you have wanted to see the whole lot of them get fired even if they had not committed this blunder?
Seems a clear screwup to me. Happens all the time. Too bad this one left egg on some faces. But good that no damage was done otherwise.
Yes, and that’s how it could have been dealt with. But that’s not how it’s being dealt with, is it? Instead, they’re all mostly lying about it. That committee hearing was a joke, and the calibre of leaders heading the US intelligence agencies on show was nothing short of embarrassing. Why couldn’t someone say right at the start, “We made a mistake. It shouldn’t have happened and will never again. We have liaised with the journalist to ensure the further (classified) information is not disclosed. The individual who added him to the chat has been identified and dismissed. All US government officials have been reminded that whilst Signal may be used for communication, it may not be used to share classified information. Cabinet members will not be using Signal at all moving forwards.” The end. It’s not hard is it? Any of those Director’s juniors could have spun that out. Why couldn’t they?
If anyone does not know Pepe Escobar you need to, a top global Journalist. He is out today on Judge Napolitano (youtube) and is IN Yemen himself and was there during the attack. Also has the ‘leaked mails’. Vance comes off very badly as he says the attack (on civilian targets there) was ‘To Send A Message’.
Dead Muslims is the way to message de-rigueur today it seems, as USA is assisting the great slaughter of Netanyahu’s, with endless 2000 pound bombs, aircraft, fuel, $$$$$$, and so on, to basically destroy Gaza and kill astounding amounts of them – all the wile lusting for a war with Iran to really get insane levels of destruction in the region. (and naturally this Houthi thing is directly a result of the Gaza horrors)
But I drag on – here is the actual show out not long ago – in person account and analyst in Yemen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBvOVMx80u8 by Pepe Escobar
And just previous, Scott Ritter (USA Marine Weapon’s inspector – the one who said NO WMDs in Iraq) talks on the same subject of USA in Yemen- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSfF59Y6Bhc . If you want to be called a Racist, then this is a good one, haha…. because things are wild in the Arab World just now, and this is one of the very few times I agree with this use of that word. (I have a past in the Middle East so feel the situation there)
Muslims don’t seem to care about killing many thousands of Muslims in the most horrendous ways, so why should we?
I don’t know Pepe Escobar, but I think I might have done some business with his brother Pablo back in the day.
I included links to Pepe Escobar, the Global Journalist, now in Senna Yemen and was there for the bombing – and talks of the story this article is about. (Unherd always has a habit of not taking my posts)
My previous post seems to have trouble posting here and so I post this without the link – to say on youtube Judge Napolitano, Pepe is on just today on this dreadful bombing America is doing. So good reporting of the above.
Also Scott Ritter was on the Judge’s channel just before, also on the Yemen bombing and e-mails, and that is also excellent on the topic.
They used Signal because it is easy and efficient. The classified systems and networks are designed for protection of information first and foremost and ease of operation is well down the list of priorities. To have the same conversation, they would have had to all go into a SCIF and meet, or go into a SCIF and review messages and notes from others, or have a staffer go back and forth and inform them of the conversations. These officials decided that it was easier and more efficient to cut corners and ignore policies, rules, and laws. Similar to Hillary’s thinking on using the private server rather than government systems.
I don’t know about what happens in the US, but I think it is quite naive to think that this kind of corner-cutting is not an everyday occurrence in the political world where things (have to) move way faster than the systems provided can allow.
And also – high-ranking politicians use insecure means of communication for important stuff all the time. I’m thinking of Von der Leyen’s texts to the head of Pfizer when the EU was negotiating a vaccine deal.
These texts were sent to an external party, not – as far as I am aware – subject to any special security. And yet they were of significant interest to the European public and related to a multibillion euro deal for vaccines. They have never been released by the Commission.
This row is ongoing but hasn’t done anything to stop VdL continuing in her role as Commission President.
So my point is firstly: the way things happen in the real, day-to-day rough and tumble does not always conform to the rules. And secondly (quite unfortunately), while a lowly employee would be fired for messing up and mishandling important or classified information – the powerful simply walk on by.
Exhibit A – Hillary and her private server
Exhibit b – Every member of the Obama admin having private email accounts sharing information on non-secure networks.
No one lost their jobs, the world didn’t end. That the left is apoplectic certainly calls out the hypocrisy of government hacks.
Calling out hypocrisy is the first thing anyone does in these situations. How about, instead of “the other side does this all the time”, we instead take responsibility and set an example. I’m so tired of seeing this excuse from the left for the last four years, but that’s what they do, spin their way out of these sorts of things. Republicans are, or should be, better.
Exhibit C – Jared Kushner’s use of WhatsApp
Exhibit D – Ivanka Trumps use of private email
It looks like the government needs to acknowledge that official procedures are too cumbersome, and develop a more user friendly but equally secure procedure. The left’s apoplexy is that Trump’s campaign was centered around Hillary’s private server.
Hillary ran an unremarkable and fairly lazy campaign, and was even less popular than Trump.
Medicinal, authoritarian, and dreary – though still deeply corrupt – Hillary did little to excite the voters.
Trump was bracing, exciting, and highly appealing to men and the working class, after 8 years of Obama’s pious, tweedy, upper crust leftism.
I’m not sure even the usual Trump cultists require me to point out the levels of stupidity and incompetence on display here.
If only there were some way of vetting high level government appointees in America!
It was careless. But no harm, no foul. There’s nothing here that should be punished.
Waltz at the very least should be fired, and probably Hegseth too, considering he was on shaky ground to begin with. I hate this careless attitude toward power as soon as one party feels like they are in complete control. Using Signal for official matters, a platform that can auto delete messages after x amount of time, is already bad enough. Not even knowing the people you are inviting into the chat is even worse.
Yes, we are lucky no harm came of this, and it can be used as a wakeup call. But discipline is definitely in order.
No law or regulation was broken. Poor judgment was made by Mike Waltz and Pete Hegseth but all officials make poor judgment calls from time to time. If either one were fired that would set a bad precedent.
It’s not a bad thing to make mistakes and as long as they don’t cause harm they should not be punished. Mistakes teach us more than successes. We all make them and being risk averse is often worse than taking chances.
These people were not trying to do something bad but something good. We want senior people to be tossing around ideas before a significant decision like a strike on the Houthis. Better decisions are made that way. But constraints on communications make that hard. Going into a SCIF stifles informal talk like this.
I think the worst effect from this is JD Vance’s slamming of the Europeans. That was not a good thing to do. He needs to be more diplomatic in his mindset. This may be good seasoning for him.
I think you are being far too lenient here, although maybe I’m being too harsh. I completely agree with your sentiment, of course. Mistakes happen, and we learn from them. Thankfully nothing horrible came of it. But where is the line between mistakes and pure negligence?
They were trying to do something good? By using signal to discuss official business?
What other corners are they cutting in the name of “trying to do something good”?
And negligent enough to invite someone into the group before being absolutely sure the person is who they thought he was?
These guys are holding some of the highest ranks in the federal government. You or I can make “mistakes” when we text the wrong person. There is way too much blatant negligence here for me to write it off in such a cavalier manner.
I also want to be clear that this doesn’t define the administration. This is ugly, but I’m still optimistic that Trump and his group can reconcile this with time. But they are gonna have to wear that egg for a little while
Yes. Firing people for rank incompetence would set an awful precedent. If you do it once, there would be an expectation that you would do it again.
The man who called for Hillary to be locked up should ask the DOJ to investigate. Or admit that he is hypocrite.
This is one chat that a journalist leaked.
Clinton concealed thousands of emails, intentionally, and stored them on a server in her tech contractor’s bathroom.
Leaked communications between her State Dept and various middle eastern governments also touched off the “Arab Spring,” which resulted in over 100,000 deaths after Chelsea nee Bradley Manning, an Army clerk at the time, released them to the media.
Of course Donald Trump is a hypocrite. All politicians are. It’s the nature of the business.
They’ll be a good number of senior US military and intelligence officers having their fears further confirmed that the current administration and Trumpist culture cavalier (at best) in ensuring their security first and foremost.
The sub-plot about whether US should take a lead on securing Suez canal and Gulf of Aden is worth pondering though. It’s correct less direct US trade goes through these sea lanes. However the Houthi exempt the Chinese from attack and thus confirm the supportive axis between Iran and China. Ceding more influence to the CCP has no benefits for the US. Europe must do more, but US also needs to recognise how each side aligns and who it wishes to support or weaken. Israel not served by ceding control either. US also needs to be clear what message it sends regarding the South China sea and even the Straits of Malacca in how it responds in the Gulf of Aden. Of course until recently worldwide free trade seen as beneficial to free market capitalism of which US the primary agent and hence a role in securing international sea lanes related. Now not so sure. At best US strategy seems all over the place. But Europe must also recognise it has to do more and with the recent German response the awakening is happening. The question remains whether it’s fast enough.
America isn’t hitting the Houthis because they want to help Europe keep a shipping lane open, they’re hitting the Houthis because Israel wants them to
Good comment. Note that the Chinese navy (officially and confusingly called the People’s Liberation Army Navy) has recently been carrying out exercises in the Gulf of Oman with Russian and Iranian forces. If the US doesn’t do something about freedom of navigation in the Red Sea the Chinese might step in. Which would be crushingly embarrassing for the West and strategically very damaging.
Well the solution to this issue is very simple. First, the text chat in Signals was hacked by Goldberg and the Atlantic. Second, by publishing anything, Goldberg and the Atlantic staff should all be arrested for treason and put in jail for life., Or maybe they could cut and run and emigrate (forcibly) to Russia or Yemen!
I don’t think you know what “hacked” means!!!
Here’s a clue – it doesn’t involve being invited to a chat group! LOL!
What ever happened to the Cone of Silence?
What? I can’t hear you…..
Who cares?
Anyone who thinks rationally about the world situation knows that the USA holds “Europe” in contempt because its leaders are posturing nonentities with no real military or economic power and that the USA will seek to benefit Israel.
There really is “nothing to see here”
You are spectacularly missing the point. No great surprise there but this episode of mass incompetence at the highest levels demonstrates once again that Trump cultists care more about defending their moron president and the criminals he surrounds himself with than they do about their country.
It strikes me that the administration would otherwise have called for the journalist to be arrested for treason for having transmitted this info to the country’s enemies.
But since it’s most likely the administration added the journalist deliberately to send a message to the Europeans, then their job is already done.
According to ChatGPT, under the U.S. Espionage Act (18 U.S.C. § 793-798), publishing sensitive or classified government information—even if received accidentally—could lead to serious legal consequences. In addition, there is a “Duty to Report – Legally, you should notify the government (e.g., FBI, NSA, or the agency involved) and not disseminate the information” which is received accidentally. Surely The Atlantic, and most media companies would be aware of their legal requirements, especially after what happened to Chelsea Manning. So my questions would be: 1) why did they see fit to publish the details of the Signal messages, and 2) why is the US government not taking action against The Atlantic?
There was nothing sensitive or classified in what the Atlantic printed. It was an informal discussion of foreign policy. People’s opinions. That’s all.
The possibly sensitive information about the planned strike in Yemen was not published by the Atlantic.
As to the reporter’s liability for publishing what he did, that’s probably protected by the freedom of the press under the First Amendment.
My only question: who owns signal?
I thought Hegseth’s brief interview on the tarmac in Hawaii was instructive. He was clearly boiling with rage at being so publicly humiliated and couldn’t even wait for the reporter to finish her question before spitting out his completely dishonest response.
Sounds like he is exactly the character that I thought he was. The boozing, being kicked out of the army, the sexual assaults and womanizing, the managerial incompetence – this episode demonstrates clearly how unqualified Hegseth remains for this job. He’ll probably survive this as the extreme right circles the wagons around him but how long until he screws up again – and at what cost?
You are becoming too aroused. It is unseemly.
I’m flattered but you’re really not my type.
Thank goodness….
Your criticisms of Hegseth are valid ones, but on the flip-side, he does have a good head of hair.
This is literally the only reason he has the job he’s in. At least for now anyway….
A good head of hair goes a long way in US politics.
It looks like a monumental foul up, of a kind that could seriously damage the administration. Heads should roll, arguably all of them if none of them spotted the foul up.
Is a “soaring summit of hypocrisy” beyond this administration. Not with Trump in charge its not.
Obama and Hillary had no cost for her using personal network for 3 or 4 yrs. What price should hegseth and Trump pay?
Maybe if she had been discussing live operational detail and had invited Sean Hannity to the conversation it would have been different
The Signal call may be an epic failure and Walz or another player may have to go. We’ll see what happens.
But let’s be clear, everyone perpetually runs around with their hair on fire on the Left. They’re always baying for blood, like a pack of coyotes. This is the shortlist: Threatening to murder or lock up political opponents, lying to FISA courts, hoaxing America with Russiagate, designating parents domestic terrorists, suppressing free speech through high tech, lying about Covid, men are women, open borders for gang members and terrorists, Joe Biden is fit as a fiddle, Kamala anointed to save “Our Democracy”, cocaine and depraved sex acts in the White House, blowing up cars, vandalizing and burning down businesses, harassing everyone every day, antisemitic Jew hating, profanity spewing, maniacal Kumbaya singing, all just fine. But the world is ending if an intel call is intercepted by a liar like Goldberg from the far left rag The Atlantic.
Talk about hysteria, the Left has a lock on it. It’s pathetic. Not to mention certifiably deranged. Because they have nothing else to offer.
Did you get all that from the Pete Hegseth Signal chat?
Trump supporters here think it’s all fine and everyone in the administration is telling the fulsome truth about the incident, which actually caused no harm anyway and thus it is mystifying that anyone should have any concerns about it at all. Plus ca change.