"Atlantic" published the entire chat about the planned US attack on the Houthis in Yemen, in which journalist Jeffrey Goldberg was caught. How did the White House manage to make the mistake with the Signal chat?
1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (12:15, F-18 takes off): This is how one of Pete Hegseth's messages begins in the general chat, in which the plans for the US attack on the Yemeni armed group of the Houthis were discussed in detail. Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg from the renowned American magazine "The Atlantic" also falls into this chat. The message was delivered at 11:44, 31 minutes before American fighter jets were to take off for Yemen to strike Houthi positions in the country. More messages followed, detailing the American mission against the Houthis minute by minute. The entire chat, which caused a scandal in Washington, was published by "The Atlantic".
Representatives of the administration of US President Donald Trump claim that the messages sent in the group chat in Signal, to which Jeffrey Goldberg was also added, did not contain classified information. Goldberg and the editorial staff of the American magazine have claimed from the very beginning that the information that accidentally reached the journalist concerns national security and could have endangered the lives of American servicemen if it fell into the wrong hands.
The media outlet stated that they had asked the Donald Trump administration whether they had any objections to the entire communication being published, since, according to them, it was not classified information. The Atlantic says it received a response from White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt, who said: "As we have repeatedly stated, no classified information was shared in this general chat." However, Leavitt continues, the White House does not encourage the publication of the data. According to her, "sensitive" information was discussed.
"Haven't you ever written down someone's contact number, but the number belongs to someone else?"
In the hours after Goldberg revealed that he had been in this chat, the Donald Trump administration went into explanatory mode. From everything said so far, however, it is still not clear how such a colossal mistake was made - a journalist ended up in a joint chat with the vice president, the secretary of state and other people from the highest echelon of Washington. Donald Trump first said that he did not know what it was about, answering journalistic questions on Tuesday, March 25. Later, the American president commented on the case to the American television channel Newsmax. His explanation did not provide much more clarity. According to Trump, an employee of Mike Walz, who added Goldberg to the chat, used the national security adviser's phone to call the journalist. "Somehow this person ended up in the chat", Trump says. Otherwise, the president continued to insist that this was just a "slip" and it was "nothing serious".
Mike Walz himself took "full responsibility" and gave a completely different explanation - that Goldberg's phone number may have been saved in his device because he thought it was someone else's phone. Walz confirmed that he does not personally know the editor-in-chief of "The Atlantic". "Haven't you ever saved someone's contact number, but the number is someone else's," Walz asked in an interview on "Fox News".
Meanwhile, Mike Walz said that the Elon Musk-led Commission on Government Efficiency would investigate how Goldberg was added to the chat.
Will there be consequences?
Trump continues to publicly defend Mike Walz and even said that he was "a good guy" and had "learned his lesson". Sources of the same publication told journalist Jonathan Lemire that the president is actually quite nervous about the negative comments about the administration after the Signal incident. According to the sources of "Atlantic", Trump has instructed everyone in the administration to protect those involved in the scandal and attack the source of the information. They believe that unless the situation worsens even more, Trump is unlikely to punish anyone.
There is also the question of whether commenting on top-secret military strike plans on a public application like Signal can be prosecuted. The fact is that according to the US Espionage Act, handling confidential information related to national security with such "gross negligence" is a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
In theory, this should be worrisome for those who send messages with war plans to a journalist, writes "Politico". However, Trump's team insists that it was not a matter of classified information. Jeffrey Goldberg claims the opposite, although he did not share the information because it would put him in danger.
In theory, the participants in this incident could probably be brought to justice. In practice, however, given that the White House is downplaying the case, it is unlikely that Trump-appointed Attorney General Pam Bondi will take this path. And again: it remains to be seen whether the publication of the entire chat by "The Atlantic" will change something in this direction.
Warning not to use Signal
A few days after the general chat about the strikes on the Houthis was held on the Signal platform, the Pentagon issued an official warning not to use the application even for the exchange of unclassified information, writes the American radio NPR.
"Russian hacking groups are using the option for connected devices to join Signal accounts and spy on encrypted conversations," the Pentagon's warning reads. Signal management said that this is not a security problem with the application, but a so-called "phishing" cyberattack.