White House and Pentagon leaders are denying accusations that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth improperly shared military secrets and classified information outside of secure channels ahead of military airstrikes against Houthi targets earlier this month.
But lawmakers — including a few Republicans — are demanding more information about top administration officials’ use of a group chat on the commercial app Signal that accidentally included a journalist from The Atlantic in conversations ahead of the launch of the military operation, to see if any laws were broken.
Officials from the National Security Council have publicly acknowledged that numerous top administration officials used the app to communicate ahead of the first airstrikes on March 16. The participants list included Hegseth, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Vice President JD Vance, among others.
It also included Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg, apparently added by mistake. In a story published Monday, Goldberg said the conversation included “operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.”
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White House officials dismissed concerns about the mistake on Tuesday. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on social media that “no ‘war plans’ were discussed” in the chat and disputed claims from Goldberg that he saw classified material on the thread.
Similarly, in a press gaggle Monday, Hegseth attacked Goldberg as a “deceitful journalist” and accused him of “peddling hoaxes” without directly addressing the use of the non-secure channel for operational planning.
He also called the attacks a success, and said that should be the focus of the issue.
Still, in a statement to reporters on Monday, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., called the existence of the chat group “definitely a concern” and said he believes “that mistakes were made” by senior officials. He vowed to hold classified briefings on the issue in the coming days.
Democratic lawmakers said that doesn’t go far enough.
A group of 14 Democratic senators on Monday demanded disciplinary action against some or all of the chat group participants for an “egregious breach of public trust” in the information leak.
“It does not take much imagination to consider the likely ramifications if this information had been made public prior to the strike – or worse, if it had been shared with or visible to an adversary rather than a reporter who seems to have a better grasp of how to handle classified information than your National Security Advisor,” the senators wrote.
“This is an astonishingly cavalier approach to national security.”
House Armed Services Committee ranking member Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., said in a social media post that “it’s time to start seriously worrying about the competency of President Trump’s national security team.” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. and ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called for Waltz and Hegseth to resign.
Trump, in an interview with NBC News on Tuesday, brushed aside the controversy, saying that “Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man.”
On Monday, in a press event with reporters, he joked that the information leak could not be too serious because the strikes against the Houthis were effective and lethal.
Potential violations
Military operations — especially those about to occur — are highly sensitive U.S. secrets, which can put service members and American intelligence methods at risk. And while many of the officials participating in the group have the authority to declassify information themselves, there’s no public indication that they took formal steps to that effect.
Trump himself has a history with classified information. In his first term, he posted a picture of a rocket explosion inside Iran on Twitter, the social app now known as X. The image was taken from a highly classified U.S. spy satellite, but the president chose to release it without a formal approval process, usually required to publish such information.
U.S. government regulations also prohibit the use of personal devices or commercial messaging apps like Signal to discuss national security information. And though Signal is an encrypted app, that doesn’t mean it’s secure. Foreign governments can hack into and monitor personal cell phones, recording every keystroke made on the device. Such a breach wouldn’t immediately be clear, a former senior national security official said, speaking anonymously to avoid potential retaliation.
“The White House Counsel’s Office has provided guidance on a number of different platforms for President Trump’s top officials to communicate as safely and efficiently as possible,” Leavitt wrote Monday. Her post didn’t address whether Signal was one such platform, or what it would mean for broader U.S. intelligence standards.
That said, the president could retroactively say that he had authorized group chats like the one Goldberg was invited to, shielding the officials involved. Trump argued in his interview with NBC Tuesday morning that there was no immediate consequence to the chat, calling the episode a “glitch.”
“There’s a very real world in which this whole thing happens and it’s embarrassing and its mortifying, but no one gets fired,” said Jamil Jaffer, head of George Mason University Antonin Scalia School of Law’s National Security Institute.
A Defense Department memorandum from October 2023 specifically instructs senior military leaders not to use “non-DOD accounts or personal email accounts, messaging systems or other non-public DOD information systems — except approved or authorized government contractor systems — to conduct official business involving controlled unclassified information” or for classified national security files.
Department officials have also not publicly announced Signal as an authorized platform for military personnel use.
On Tuesday, John Ratcliffe, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee that Signal is “permissible to use for work purposes” for his agency provided that the messages are also preserved elsewhere to conform with public records standards.
Ratcliffe confirmed that he was also on the Houthi airstrike chat group. Both he and Gabbard insisted that no classified information from the intelligence community was shared in the conversation.
FBI officials said they are still reviewing the incident, and have not yet committed to a full investigation. Warner and other Senate Democrats are pushing for one, calling it critical to public confidence in the administration.
Leo covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He has covered Washington, D.C. since 2004, focusing on military personnel and veterans policies. His work has earned numerous honors, including a 2009 Polk award, a 2010 National Headliner Award, the IAVA Leadership in Journalism award and the VFW News Media award.
Noah Robertson is the Pentagon reporter at Defense News. He previously covered national security for the Christian Science Monitor. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and government from the College of William & Mary in his hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia.
