March 24, The Atlantic Magazine Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg published an article claiming that members of the Trump administration added his phone number to a Signal chat, an encrypted messaging app the Pentagon discovered in 2021, discussing war plans. At first, the magazine did not publish the full exchange between officials, not wanting to release classified information, but later Goldberg revealed the full exchange between government workers. Members of the group included U.S. Vice President JD Vance, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director John Ratcliffe, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. This error led to a questioning of U.S. privacy since this leak of top secret information had never occurred before.
In his article, Goldberg discussed and showed the sensitive information he received March 15. At 11:44 AM, two hours prior to the release of this information to the public, Hegseth texted specific details of the war plan into the signal group chat, including precise information about weapons the military would deploy, targets of bombings and even timing of the military strikes on Yemen. One message from Hegseth mentioned when the bombs would drop and the exact times that F-18 fighter jets and drones would launch bombs on terrorist groups in Houthi. Hegseth denied that these messages could classify as war plans, rather referring to them as attack plans to bring down the severity of the leak.
“I expected [the leak] to be worse; they did not have the usual assortment of memes and posts that normal group chats have, and leaking that would have been worse. It was pretty boring, considering that the people in the group chat were only talking about the things that they were going to tell the people anyway. It wasn’t anything that serious, so honestly, I’m a little disappointed,” magnet sophomore Marian Evans said.
This leak also led to tensions arising between Democrats and Republicans. As Republicans currently rule both the House of Representatives and the Senate, all motives for investigation land in their hands, leading to backlash as no deeper investigation of the leak has occurred yet. In an interview with Fox News, national security advisor, Mike Waltz took full responsibility for the security breach, stating that he had created the group chat and therefore embarrassingly added Goldberg as a member, yet he remained unable to define the precise logistics of how the leak occurred and why no one detected it before the release of the sensitive messages. This acknowledgment does not seem to satisfy the public as a response to the occurrence, as certain Democrats remain outraged, calling for an investigation into the leak on the signal app.
“I first heard about the leak from my history professor. When he was talking about it, my first thought was, how did this even happen? How do you accidentally add someone that important to an equally important group chat? I am not sure whether I believe it was an accident or not, but I do think it’s very ironic that someone whose career is based on news was added to that specific group chat,” junior Jameson Johnson said.
President Donald Trump and Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson stated that the leak did not impact anyone severely and could be classified as a simple glitch, not actually releasing any classified information. Allegedly, a government worker who collaborated with Waltz at a lower level had saved Goldberg’s phone number. This remains the only information stated by Republicans as to why the leak occurred.
Questions have arisen among Americans on the event as to why the Republican national team used Signal to communicate, as this app does not provide the best platform to discuss sensitive information. If certain groups who support the Houthis had received the information that Goldberg found, the Houthis could have received these plans as well, overall ridding the purpose of U.S. military attacks. Several government members, such as Senator Tim Kaine, urged Hegseth to step down and resign from his position as Secretary of Defense due to this incident. All around the world, citizens await a detailed explanation as to the U.S. government’s professionalism regarding this incident in the hope that it will not occur again.
