Trump administration’s Signal chat scandal: Security expert weighs in
As part of a lawsuit, a federal judge has ordered Trump administration officials to save their private Signal chat detailing military plans in Yemen.
Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic’s top editor who was included in a Signal chat of Trump administration officials discussing plans for a military strike in Yemen, pushed back Sunday on National Security Advisor Michael Waltz’s claims that the two have never spoken.
Earlier this week, Waltz said he took “full responsibility” for inviting the journalist into the group. But Waltz has also said he never met or communicated with Goldberg before the incident burst into the national spotlight, and he said on Fox News that someone else in his contacts likely had Goldberg’s phone number and “then somehow it gets sucked in.”
“This isn’t ‘The Matrix,’ phone numbers don’t just get sucked in to other phones. I don’t know what he’s talking about,” Goldberg told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday morning.
“Very frequently in journalism, the most obvious explanation is the explanation: My phone number was in his phone because my phone number is in his phone,” Goldberg continued. “He’s telling everyone that he’s never met me or spoken to me. That’s simply not true.”
Goldberg was inadvertently added to a group chat earlier this month, called “Houthi PC Small Group,” where President Donald Trump’s top national security officials discussed hitting Iran-backed Houthi sites in Yemen.
“This has become a somewhat farcical situation,” Goldberg said. “There’s no subterfuge here. My number was in his phone. He mistakenly added me to the group chat. There we go.”
The administration has claimed that no classified information was shared on the messaging app, which national security experts say is not safe for sharing classified intelligence.
Goldberg then released screenshots of the messages, which included detailed information about drone targets, strike times and weaponry.
“If that’s not the most sensitive information, the most secret information in the world I simply don’t know what the meaning of classified or secret or top secret is,” he told NBC.
Goldberg added that he wishes he was not forced to release the details of the plans, which were originally withheld from The Atlantic’s reporting due to security concerns.
“The only reason I did that was because they said we were lying about what we had, and they were trying to cover up what was obviously a massive national security breach.”
Trump previously told NBC he does not plan to fire any of the top security officials involved in the leaked Signal group chat.
“I have no idea what Signal is. I don’t care what Signal is,” Trump said.