White House Responds After Journalist Apparently Looped Into Group Chat on Houthi Strike 👉 Updatem News

White House National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said the Trump admin is ’reviewing how an inadvertent number was added’ to the Signal chat.

The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief was accidentally added to a Trump administration text chat discussing the renewed campaign of U.S. airstrikes on Houthi terrorists in Yemen in the hours after the first bombs dropped, the White House has confirmed.

In a story published in The Atlantic on March 24, journalist and editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg recounted being added to a group chat on the encrypted messaging app Signal on March 15, nearly three hours before the U.S. government officially announced it had resumed a campaign of strikes targeting the Houthis.

Recounting the incident for The Atlantic, Goldberg reported that an individual he believes to have been White House national security adviser Mike Waltz added him to a group chat at 11:44 a.m. ET on March 15. At 2:29 p.m. ET on the same day, Trump took to his Truth Social platform to publicly announce the new U.S. strikes on Yemen.

Goldberg wrote that the Signal user who added him to the group chat, apparently unprompted, was named “Michael Waltz.”

“I assumed that the Michael Waltz in question was President Donald Trump’s national security adviser,” he wrote.

Goldberg recounted other names in the group chat included “JD Vance,” “TG” (whom Goldberg believes was Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard), “Scott B” (possibly Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent), “Pete Hegseth,” “John Ratcliffe,” and “MAR” (whom Goldberg noted shares the same initials as Secretary of State Marco Antonio Rubio).

Responding to a request for comment from The Epoch Times, White House National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said the group chat Goldberg was included in looked to be authentic.

“At this time, the message thread that was reported appears to be authentic, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” Hughes wrote. “The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials.

“The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to our servicemembers or our national security.”

‘Don’t Know Anything About It’: Trump

When asked about the apparent inadvertent leak of sensitive national security discussions to a journalist, President Donald Trump said he had no knowledge of the episode.

“I don’t know anything about it. I’m not a big fan of The Atlantic. It’s to me, it’s a magazine that’s going out of business,” Trump told reporters at a White House event on Monday. “I think it’s not much of a magazine, but I know nothing about it.”

Trump has previously clashed with The Atlantic in general and Goldberg in particular.

In a September 2020 article for the publication, Goldberg shared allegations from anonymous sources that Trump had made disparaging comments about World War I soldiers during a 2018 visit to a war cemetery in Paris, France. Current and former White House officials denied the allegations in Goldberg’s article.

Responding to Goldberg’s 2020 article, Trump wrote on social media platform X, “The Atlantic Magazine is dying, like most magazines, so they make up a fake story in order to gain some relevance.”

Recounting being added to the Signal chat earlier this month, Goldberg wrote, “I did think it somewhat unusual, given the Trump administration’s contentious relationship with journalists—and Trump’s periodic fixation on me specifically.”

Internal Discussions Revealed

As the user “Michael Waltz” addressed members of the Signal group chat ahead of the renewed strikes on Yemen, according to Goldberg, he wrote: “Team – establishing a principles [sic] group for coordination on Houthis, particularly for over the next 72 hours. My deputy Alex Wong is pulling together a tiger team at deputies/agency Chief of Staff level following up from the meeting in the Sit Room this morning for action items and will be sending that out later this evening.”

This message from “Waltz” continued: “Pls provide the best staff POC from your team for us to coordinate with over the next couple days and over the weekend. Thx.”

Thereafter, members of the Signal chat submitted names of representatives. For example, “MAR” wrote, “Mike Needham for State,” while “TG” wrote, “Joe Kent for DNI,” according to Goldberg.

By being included on the Signal channel, Goldberg could read past messages shared in the chat. At around 8:16 a.m. on March 14, the user “JD Vance” wrote that he would be out “doing an economic event in Michigan,” according to Goldberg. Indeed, Vice President Vance was at a White House event in Michigan that day.

“Vance” went on to write, in the same March Signal message, “I think we are making a mistake,” according to Goldberg.

The renewed U.S. strikes this month came after the Houthis threatened to resume their own campaign of drone and missile attacks targeting commercial shipping in the Red Sea and its adjoining waterways. The Houthis—whom the Trump administration recently redesignated as a foreign terrorist organization—have insisted they will continue to carry out these attacks on commercial ships so long as the Israeli military continues to fight in the Gaza Strip.

The Red Sea represents a key international shipping lane connecting East Africa and South Asia to Europe.

In another message at 8:45 a.m. on March 14, according to Goldberg, “JD Vance” wrote in a message directed at “Pete Hegseth”: “if you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again.”

The signal user “Pete Hegseth” reportedly replied: “VP: I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC. But Mike is correct, we are the only ones on the planet (on our side of the ledger) who can do this. Nobody else even close. Question is timing. I feel like now is as good a time as any, given POTUS directive to reopen shipping lanes. I think we should go; but POTUS still retains 24 hours of decision space.”

This is a developing story and will be updated with additional details.

Emel Akan contributed to this report.

Original News Source Link – Epoch Times

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