New reporting in Politico says President Donald Trump wasn't just "upset" with Mike Waltz for being involved in the leaked war plans chat to journalist Jeffrey Goldberg — Trump was "suspicious."
Publicly, Trump gave his full-throated support of his national security advisor, who inadvertently added Goldberg to the chat detailing an upcoming air strike on the Houthi rebels in Yemen, telling NBC's Garrett Haake, "Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he's a good man."
"Despite spending Monday questioning whether Waltz needed to resign, the White House and its allies on Tuesday sought to downplay the sensitivity of the information shared in the group chat," the report stated. "Officials suggested the national security community, in collaboration with the media, was making a bigger deal out of the issue than it was, arguing the material was not classified and suggesting Goldberg had sensationalized the content."
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But behind the scenes, Trump questioned why Waltz had the Atlantic editor-in-chief's phone number "saved in his phone in the first place."
The report stated that Monday's episode was "a particularly embarrassing blunder for an administration that has spent two months arguing it will not tolerate leaks. Not only was the leak of sensitive military details by top officials a clumsy accident, it also involved a reporter and an outlet the administration sees as diametrically opposed to its agenda."
Waltz has denied ever having had contact with Goldberg, telling reporters at a meeting of Trump’s ambassadors Tuesday afternoon, “There’s a lot of journalists in this city who have made big names for themselves making up lies … This one in particular I’ve never met, don’t know, never communicated with, and we are looking into and reviewing how the heck he got into this room."
A source told Politico that "the incident has strained Waltz’s relationship with Trump’s inner circle."
In his original article for The Atlantic, Goldberg wrote that he didn't reveal the entire chat thread over national security concerns. However, after the Trump administration repeatedly denied the information was "classified," Goldberg published a follow-up article Wednesday that revealed the entirety of the chat, except for the name of a CIA intelligence officer out of concern for their safety.
Read The Politico article here.