The political news that has caught everyone’s attention today revolves around Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic news website, being accidentally pulled into a Signal chat group by high-ranking officials in the Donald Trump administration to discuss plans for an upcoming attack on Houthi rebels in Yemen.
According to Goldberg, on March 11th, he received a friend request on Signal from Michael Waltz, a national security advisor to the Trump administration. Despite some uncertainty about the authenticity of the request, Goldberg accepted it, even though Waltz did not communicate anything during their initial interaction.
Two days later, Goldberg was added to a chat group named “Houthi PC small group,” where Waltz mentioned that the U.S. government would be conducting a strike against the Houthis within the next 72 hours, with Waltz’s associates pulling in relevant individuals to facilitate coordination.
The chat group included Deputy Chief of Staff JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Antonio Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Homeland Security Secretary Pete Hegseth, and other key figures in the administration.
Initially skeptical of the legitimacy of the messages in the group, Goldberg suspected it to be a forum for spreading false information. However, after several days of reading the messages, he realized that he was indeed in the real group, where high-ranking government officials were engaging in heated discussions.
The messages in the chat provided advance details of the planned attack on the Houthis in Yemen, two hours before the actual strike took place. Subsequently, Goldberg quietly exited the group and sent an email to Waltz and others in the administration to inquire about the authenticity of the chat group and their involvement in pulling him into it, which was confirmed to be genuine.
Goldberg expressed concerns that Waltz may have violated several laws governing the dissemination of classified information about national security, as Signal is not an approved platform for government communication. The U.S. government’s policy requires discussions on security matters to be conducted through SCIF (sensitive compartmented information facility), designated for use by officials at ministerial levels.
Source: The Atlantic
TLDR: Jeffrey Goldberg was unknowingly added to a Signal chat group by Trump administration officials discussing a military strike on Houthi rebels in Yemen, raising concerns about the potential violation of laws governing classified information dissemination.
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