All posts tagged "Signal Chat"

A new screenshot reveals the moment Pete Hegseth and top Trump officials learned a journalist had been in their Signal chat.

The image, which The Daily Beast reported on Thursday, shows the precise point at which Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg exited the "Houthi PC small group" chat, where officials had been discussing military strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen. Nate Jones, who serves as FOIA director at The Washington Post, obtained the screenshot through a public records request and posted it to X, according to the report.

According to the image, which was released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, a participant identified by the initials "TG" cheered news of the successful strikes by writing "great work and effects!" Those initials are believed to belong to Tulsi Gabbard, who was serving as director of national intelligence at the time. Shortly after that message, everyone in the group, including Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance, received an automated alert that read "Jeff Goldberg left the group."...

MSNBC editor Steve Benen couldn't believe the words that came out of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's mouth Tuesday regarding his handling of classified information.

Hegseth spent part of the morning on Fox News defending his use of the unsecured Signal chat app to disseminate the timing and coordinates of a Houthi airstrike in Yemen.

Benen referenced a clip in which Hegseth said, "There's a reason why our nation's most closely held secrets are contained in certain places with only access from certain people. Nobody takes that more seriously than me."...

U.S. diplomat Brett McGurk, who has held senior national security positions under both Republican and Democratic presidents, expressed his concern Tuesday on CNN over government insiders claiming the Pentagon was disintegrating under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's leadership.

On Sunday, The New York Times reported that Hegseth used the unsecured Signal app a second time to share sensitive Houthi attack information with family members. Hegseth went on "Fox & Friends" Tuesday morning to blame the information "leak" on three Pentagon aides whom he appointed, then recently fired.

One of those former aides, John Ullyot, wrote in an opinion piece for Politico that the past "month from hell" at the agency has led to "a full-blown meltdown at the Pentagon." ...

When news broke of the leaked Signal group chat detailing an impending strike against Houthi rebels in Yemen, critics called for heads to roll for potentially putting U.S. service members at risk. But instead of expressing concern over soldiers who could have been killed due to the leak, President Donald Trump immediately went on the defensive, standing firmly behind his national security adviser and secretary of defense, with no mention of American soldiers.

West Point graduate Lucian K. Truscott IV wrote in a new column for Salon that the Signal chat incident proved just how little the Trump administration cares about the fate of soldiers who have no choice but to follow Trump's commands.

"Trump's national security team cared so little about the pilots they sent into combat against the Houthis that they used the insecure civilian Signal app to plan the mission," Truscott wrote....

Republican talking points on the leaked Signal chat revealing air strike plans against Houthi rebels in Yemen have veered from "the information wasn't classified" to the whole thing "was a hoax" perpetrated by The Atlantic journalist Jeffrey Goldberg.

Goldberg was inadvertently added to the chat by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who took responsibility for the mistake.

But on Wednesday, Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) floated a new theory on CNN. ...

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."...