A journalist for The Atlantic reported he was erroneously included in a Trump administration group chat where official discussed renewed U.S. strikes on Yemen.
President Donald Trump’s top national security officials are facing questions this week after a journalist reported that he was added to an encrypted group chat where administration officials appeared to be discussing plans for renewed U.S. strikes in Yemen.
On March 15, U.S. forces began launching airstrikes and missile attacks targeting Yemen’s Houthis, a U.S.-designated terrorist group. Throughout the past 14 months, the Houthis have repeatedly targeted commercial shipping in the Red Sea with drone and missile attacks, saying these attacks will continue so long as the Israeli military continues to attack terrorist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
In a March 24 article, The Atlantic magazine’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg reported that someone with access to a group chat on the Signal messaging app added him to a chat channel titled “Houthi PC small group” on March 13, about two full days before the renewed U.S. strikes on Yemen began.
Recounting the episode, Goldberg reported that the Signal user who brought him onto the chat was named “Michael Waltz,” the same name as Trump’s national security adviser. It was there on this chat channel that several other Signal users discussed the planning to begin striking targets in Yemen.
Goldberg provided some copies of the text messages that flowed through the chat group and described other elements of the discussion in looser detail.
At one point in his summary of the incident, Goldberg alleged that a Signal user, whom he believes was Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, described the timing, targets, and specific weapons to be used in the renewed strikes on Yemen.
At another point, Goldberg said various users on the chat began naming representatives for further follow-on discussions about the strikes in Yemen. The Atlantic journalist reported a user he believes to have been CIA Director John Ratcliffe named a CIA employee in this exchange. Goldberg wrote that he elected to withhold the CIA employee’s name out of concern that the person’s identity would be a sensitive detail.
A spokesman for the National Security Council has since told The Epoch Times that the conversation Goldberg described in his article “appears to be authentic.”
“We are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” the National Security Council spokesman said.
By Ryan Morgan
