On 15 March 2025 US Central Command (CENTCOM) initiated a large-scale operation consisting of precision strikes against Iran-backed Houthi targets across Yemen “in order to restore freedom of navigation”, but that isn’t what made the headlines.
What did was the fact that US National Security Advisor Michael Waltz inadvertently copied in a US journalist, The Atlantic Editor Jeff Goldberg, into a group chat among senior Trump Administration officials on messaging app Signal that discussed classified information prior to the operation being executed.
This appears to be a major security breach that contravenes a number of US security laws and regulations, yet in the wake of the revelation numerous Trump Administration officials have denied and obfuscated over the extent of the incident.
On 24 March the initial response of US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was on the group chat with other senior officials including US Vice President JD Vance, was to attack Goldberg’s credibility and to state that “Nobody was texting war plans and that’s all I have to say about that.”
In a subsequent 24 March interview with CNN, however, Goldberg stated, “No, that’s a lie. He was texting war plans. He was texting attack plans, when targets were gonna be targeted, how they were gonna be targeted, who was at the targets, when the next sequence of attacks were happening.”
Goldberg noted that he did not publish those details because he believed the information was “too confidential, too technical”, adding, “I worry, honestly, that sharing that kind of information in public could endanger American military personnel.”
Significant alarm over the security breach was expressed on both sides of the US political aisle. Republican Nebraska Representative Don Bacon, for example, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, stated, “None of this should have been sent on non-secure systems. Russia and China are surely monitoring,” while Democratic California Representative Sara Jacobs, another member of the House Armed Services Committee, said that the government “can’t just chalk this up to a simple mistake”, adding: “People should be fired for this.”
Former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, whose presidential campaign against Donald Trump in 2016 was derailed by an FBI investigation into her use of a private server for classified emails while she served as the US secretary of state (in which she was exonerated), simply stated on the X social media platform, “You have got to be kidding me.”
Yet on 25 March several senior Trump Administration national security officials continued to downplay the incident under sharp questioning from outraged Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who was also on the Signal Group chat, claimed that “There were no classified or intelligence equities that were included in that chat group at any time,” while CIA Director John Ratcliffe, also on the chat, was similarly adamant in denying the seriousness of the incident.
Both Gabbard and Ratcliffe, however, appeared to shift responsibility to Hegseth for sending potentially classified information on the Signal group chat. Ratcliffe told the committee, “With respect to the assertions and the allegations that there was strike packages or targeting information or things that relate to DoD [the US Department of Defense] … the Secretary of Defense is the original classification authority for determining whether something is classified or not and, as I’ve understood from media reports, the Secretary of Defense has said the information was not classified”.
Gabbard also deferred on the issue to Hegseth, who only squeaked by his confirmation hearing as US secretary of defence over his lack of senior political experience.
While the US security breach appeared to contravene at least three US laws – through the use of a messaging app strictly not authorised for classified conversations, the divulging of classified information to a journalist and through a contravention of the US Presidential Records Act (Waltz had set his Signal chats to disappear after a week) – the conversation on Signal also threatened to widen the current political rift between the US and Europe. In the chat Vance had expressed reservations about the military action to Hegseth by texting, “If you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again,” noting that only 3% of US trade runs through the Suez Canal where the Houthis are stifling international shipping with their attacks, as opposed to 40% of European trade.
Hegseth responded by texting, “I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC.”
One EU diplomat told digital newspaper Politico, “It’s sobering to see the way they speak about Europe when they think no one is listening.”
