The Atlantic magazine on Wednesday, March 26, published what it said was the full text of a chat group mistakenly shared with a journalist by top Trump administration officials laying out plans of an imminent attack on Yemen. The stunning details, including the times of strikes and types of planes being used, were all laid out in screenshots of the chat, which the officials had conducted on a commercial Signal messaging app, rather than a secure government platform.
The magazine, which initially only published the broad outlines of the chat, said it was now publishing the details after the Trump administration repeatedly denied that any classified information had been included.
The scandal has rocked President Donald Trump's administration, which for now is reacting defiantly – attacking The Atlantic and denying any wrongdoing. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt quickly responded to say The Atlantic was conceding "these were NOT 'war plans.' The entire story was another hoax."
National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes had said Monday the chain cited by The Atlantic appeared to be "authentic."
The Atlantic journalist, editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sent information in the Signal chat – also including Vice President JD Vance and Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe – right ahead of strikes against the Houthi rebels on March 15. For reasons unknown, Goldberg's phone number had been added to the group. Goldberg also revealed disparaging comments by the top US officials about European allies during their chat.
The Atlantic initially did not publish the precise details of the chat, saying it wanted to avoid revealing classified material and information that could endanger American troops. But on Tuesday, Ratcliff and other officials involved in the chat played down the scandal, testifying before Congress that nothing critical had been shared or laws broken – and that nothing discussed was classified.
The Atlantic said on Wednesday that it asked the government whether in that case there would be any problem in publishing the rest of the material. Leavitt responded, The Atlantic said, telling the magazine again that "there was no classified information transmitted in the group chat." And a CIA spokesperson asked only that one of the agency's officials referenced in the chain not be identified by name.
'More F-18s LAUNCH'
The Atlantic said its publication Wednesday included everything in the Signal chain other than that one CIA name. It included Hegseth laying out the weather conditions, times of attacks and types of aircraft being used. The texting was done barely half an hour before the first US warplanes took off and two hours before the first target, described as "Target Terrorist," was expected to be bombed. The details are shockingly precise for the kind of operation that the public usually only learns about later – and in vaguer terms.
"1410: More F-18s LAUNCH (2nd strike package)," Hegseth wrote at one stage.
"1415: Strike Drones on Target (THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP, pending earlier 'Trigger Based' targets)."
A short time later, US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz sent real-time intelligence on the aftermath of an attack, writing "Building collapsed. Had multiple positive ID" and "amazing job."
On Tuesday, Waltz accepted that he had inadvertently added Goldberg to the chat. Waltz said US technical and legal experts were looking into the breach but insisted he had "never met, don't know, never communicated" with the journalist. He later told Fox's Laura Ingraham that he took "full responsibility" for the breach, saying: "I built the group; my job is to make sure everything's coordinated."
Waltz suggested the leak was the result of him mistakenly saving Goldberg's number under another name. "Have you ever had somebody's contact that shows their name and then you have somebody else's number?" he said.
The White House said on Wednesday when asked if any would be fired over a leaked chat about Yemen air strikes that President Trump still has confidence in his top national security officials. "What I can say definitively is what I just spoke to the president about, and he continues to have confidence in his national security team," Leavitt told a briefing.
Also responding to the publication of the transcript on Wednesday, US Vice President JD Vance described the magazine story as "oversold." "It's very clear (Jeffrey) Goldberg oversold what he had," Vance posted on X. "No locations. No sources & methods. NO WAR PLANS," posted Waltz.