According to a report by *The Atlantic*, senior national security officials of President Donald Trump, including the Secretary of Defense, shared war plans for an impending military strike on Yemen via text messages in an encrypted chat group that included the magazine's editor-in-chief. The National Security Council stated that the text chain "appears to be authentic."
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03-26, 2025Two and a half hours after the related report was published, Trump told reporters that he was unaware of the sharing of this sensitive information. According to editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, the material in the text chain "contained operational details of an imminent strike against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, including information about targets, the weapons the U.S. would deploy, and the sequence of attack."
It is currently unclear whether the specific details of the military operation were classified, but typically, such information is kept confidential, at least to protect the safety of military personnel and the operation itself. The United States has been conducting airstrikes against the Houthis since November 2023, when they began attacking commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea region.
Just two hours after Goldberg received the attack details, on March 15, the U.S. began a series of airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen. The National Security Council is investigating the matter and stated that it is looking into how a reporter's number was added to the Signal group chat that included Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's Director of National Intelligence, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Goldberg stated that he received a Signal invitation from Trump's National Security Advisor, Michael Waltz, who was also in the group chat.
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement late Monday that the President continues to have "tremendous confidence" in Waltz and the national security team. Trump told reporters: "I know nothing about it. This is the first time you're telling me about it." He also added that *The Atlantic* "is not much of a magazine."
Government officials have been using Signal for organizational communication, but it is not encrypted and could be vulnerable to hacking. Privacy and technology experts say that the popular end-to-end encrypted messaging and voice call app is more secure than traditional text messaging. The sharing of sensitive information comes as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's office just announced a crackdown on leaking sensitive information, including the possible use of polygraphs on defense personnel to determine how reporters obtained the information.
Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton expressed disbelief. "You have got to be kidding me," she wrote on X. Clinton's presidential campaign was hampered by reports that she used a personal email address to receive and send work emails, which Republicans used as evidence that she could not be trusted to handle classified information.
This breach of protocol was quickly condemned by Democratic lawmakers. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer called for a full investigation. Schumer said in a speech: "This is one of the most shocking breaches of military intelligence I have read about in a very, very long time." Senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement: "If true, this story represents one of the most shocking failures of operational security and common sense I have ever witnessed."
He stated that American lives are "at risk. The carelessness displayed by the Trump cabinet is staggering and dangerous. I will be seeking answers from the Administration immediately." Representative Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that he was "appalled" by the reports. Himes stated that if a lower-level official "did what is described here, they would likely lose their security clearance and be subject to a criminal investigation. The American people deserve answers," and he indicated plans to get them at a scheduled committee hearing on Wednesday.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he wants to learn more about what happened. Thune stated: "Obviously, we have to thoroughly investigate this and find out exactly what happened."
There are strict legal regulations governing the handling of defense information. The handling of defense information is subject to strict legal constraints under the Espionage Act, which dates back a century and includes provisions that make it a crime even to remove such information from its "proper place of custody" through gross negligence. In 2015 and 2016, the Justice Department investigated whether former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton violated the law by communicating classified information with aides on a private email server she had set up, but the FBI ultimately recommended against prosecution, and no charges were filed.
In the Biden administration, some officials are allowed to download Signal on their White House-issued phones but are instructed to use the app sparingly. The former national security official said Signal was most often used to pass what they internally called "pointers" to notify someone that they should check their "high-side" inbox for classified information when they were out of the office or traveling overseas. The official said the use of Signal became more prevalent in the final year of the Biden administration after federal law enforcement officials warned that China and Iran were hacking into White House officials and officials in Trump's first administration.
The official said he was unaware of senior Biden administration officials—such as Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan—using Signal to discuss sensitive plans in the way that Trump administration officials did. Some of the harshest criticism has been directed at Hegseth, a former Fox News Channel weekend host. Senator Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran, said on social media that Hegseth "is the most unqualified Secretary of Defense in history, and he's proving his incompetence by leaking classified war plans in a group chat."
