The Trump administration is dealing with the fallout from a leak of classified government information involving the nation’s national security.
In a group message on a commercial chat platform called Signal Chat among cabinet officials and senior White House staff, Trump’s Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, disclosed specific operational details of a U.S. military attack two hours before American troops launched strikes against the Houthi militia in Yemen.
The main detail of the story is that Michael Waltz, national security advisor, inadvertently added Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine, to the group chat on Signal. No one noticed the journalist’s ‘presence’ in the chat.
What did the White House say?
Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary, posted on social media that “no ‘war plan’ was discussed” and “no confidential material was sent.” This contradicts Goldberg.
His report raises concerns about government officials using Signal, a non-secure messaging platform.
After Goldberg’s report came out in The Atlantic on Monday (25), Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said in a statement that the messaging topic “seemed to be authentic.”
When Trump was first questioned about the report, he said he was unaware of the leak but immediately attacked the magazine.
“I’m not a big fan of The Atlantic,” he said. “To me, it’s a magazine that’s going out of business.”
Will Waltz face consequences?
Trump said on Tuesday that Waltz would not face consequences.
“Michael Waltz learned a lesson, and he is a good man,” Mr. Trump told NBC News. The president confirmed that one of Waltz’s team members had mistakenly added Goldberg to the chat.
Source: The New York Times