The officials of the White House National Security Council say that “they are reviewing” how a journalist could have been “inadvertently” to a group chat of 18 members that included several of the main military officials of the Nation.
Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, wrote in an article published on Monday that he was added to a group chat in the application of a commercially available signal in which the officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and national security advisor Mike Waltz were discussing the Strikes Impedes about Houthi’s militants in Yemen. Goldberg said he was apparently added to Waltz’s chat.
President Donald Trump seemed to have confidence in Waltz, saying that “Michael Waltz has learned a lesson and is a good man,” according to NBC News.
The press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, confirmed the review on Tuesday, but said “no” war plans “” were discussed. He added that no classified material was sent to the group signal chat.
National Security Advisor Mike Waltz observes while feeling next to the Secretary of Defense of the United States, Pete Hegseth, while President Donald Trump meets with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, on March 13, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters
“The White House lawyer’s office has provided guidance on a series of different platforms so that President Trump’s officials communicate as sure and efficient as possible,” he said.
“At this time, the thread of the message that was reported seems to be authentic, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” said NSC spokesman Brian Hughes, in a statement, which was sent to ABC News after being published for the first time by the Atlantic.
The scope of the review, included if trying why high -level discussions were being carried out on military planning outside the official channels, it was not immediately clear from the Hughes statement.
The senior intelligence officials, including the director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and the director of the CIA, John Ratcliffe, interrogated in the group chat during an audience previously scheduled on Tuesday before the Select Senate Intelligence Committee.
Like the White House, Gabbard and Ratcliffe said there was no classified information included in the message chain. Facing the questions of the Democrats about why the information about sequencing or attack time, as reported by the Atlantic, would not be considered classified, Ratcliffe said that the Secretary of Defense, Hegseth, had authority to determine what was classified or not.
Ratcliffe also said that he believed that National Security Advisor Waltz intended for the chat to be “a mechanism to coordinate between the senior level officials, but not a substitute to use high or classified side communications for anything that is classified.”
Democratic senator Mark Warner, the vice president of the panel, criticized the incident as “careless” and said that others would have been fired for the same behavior. Warner also pressed the officials to share the messages with the legislators after they said they did not contain classified information.
“If there was no classified material, share it with the committee. You can’t have it both ways,” he said.
National Intelligence Director, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of the CIA, John Ratcliffe, FBI director Kash Patel, the Air Force General and director of the National Security Agency Timothy Haugh and the Lieutenant General of the Air Force and director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Jeffrey Kruse, testified before a hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee World Cups in Washington, March 25, 2025.
Saul Loeb/AFP through Getty Images
The Democrats in Congress expressed their concern, with the leader of the minority of the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, asking for an investigation, saying in a statement that the use of a non -classified text application “is completely outrageous and surprises consciousness.”
“If the Republicans of the House of Representatives really take the maintenance of the United States safe, and not simply be sycophantes and facilitators, they must join the Democrats in a quick, serious and substantive investigation on this unacceptable and irresponsible national security violation,” Jeffries said.
President Donald Trump talks to the press while he meets with NATO general, Mark Rutte, at the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, on March 13, 2025 as vice president JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and national security advisor Mike Waltz listens.
Mandel and/AFP
The leader of the minority Chuck Schumer echoed the statement of Jeffries in a floor statement in the Senate on Monday.
“Mr. President, this is one of the most impressive violations of military intelligence on which I have read in a lot, a long time,” said Schumer.
The group chat included Vice President JD Vance, according to Goldberg reports, and turned before an American military operation that Trump ordered against Houthis militants, whom the United States says they are backed by Iran.
Goldberg told ABC News on Monday that he initially thought it could have been a “parody” or “deception”, but that “it became something overwhelmingly clear for me that this was a real group” once the attack occurred.
Trump, when asked for the first time about the report on Monday, said at that time he “knew anything about it.”
National Security Advisor Mike Waltz talks to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth when President Donald Trump meets with French president Emmanuel Macron at the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, on February 24, 2025.
Ludovic Marin/AFP through Getty Images
When asked about the story on Monday, Hegseth told reporters that he had “heard how it was characterized.”
He added: “No one was sending text messages to war plans, and that is all I have to say about that.”
Fritz Farrow, Luis Martínez de ABC News, Lauren Peller, Lalee Ibssa, Isabella Murray and Meredith Deliso contributed to this report.
