{"id":5475,"date":"2025-03-25T16:56:26","date_gmt":"2025-03-25T16:56:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/?p=5475"},"modified":"2025-03-25T16:56:28","modified_gmt":"2025-03-25T16:56:28","slug":"white-house-denies-war-plans-classified-information-discussed-in-signal-chat-on-yemen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/?p=5475","title":{"rendered":"White House denies ‘war plans,’ classified information discussed in Signal chat on Yemen"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Officials with the White House’s National Security Council say they “are reviewing” how a journalist could have been “inadvertently” added<\/a> to an 18-member group chat that included several of the nation’s top military officials.<\/p>\n

Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief <\/a> of The Atlantic, wrote in a piece published Monday that he was added to a group chat in the commercially available Signal app in which officials, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and national security adviser Mike Waltz, were discussing impeding strikes on Houthi militants in Yemen. Goldberg said he was apparently added to the chat by Waltz.<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump on Tuesday appeared to remain confident in Waltz, saying “Michael Waltz has learned a lesson and is a good man,” according to NBC News.<\/p>\n

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the review on Tuesday, but said that that “no ‘war plans’ were discussed.” She added that no classified material was sent to Signal group chat.<\/p>\n

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National Security Advisor Mike Waltz looks on as he sits next to U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, while President Donald Trump meets with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, Mar. 13, 2025.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Evelyn Hockstein\/Reuters<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“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,” she said.<\/p>\n

“At this time, the message thread that was reported appears to be authentic, and\u00a0we\u00a0are\u00a0reviewing\u00a0how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” NSC spokesperson Brian Hughes said in a statement, which was sent to ABC News after first being published by The Atlantic.<\/p>\n

The scope of the review, including whether it would attempt to determine why high-level discussions about military planning were taking place outside of official channels, was not immediately clear from Hughes’ statement.<\/p>\n

Democrats in Congress voiced their concern, with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries calling for an investigation, saying in a statement that the use of a non-classified text app “is completely outrageous and shocks the conscience.”<\/p>\n

“If House Republicans are truly serious about keeping America safe, and not simply being sycophants and enablers, they must join Democrats in a swift, serious and substantive investigation into this unacceptable and irresponsible national security breach,” Jeffries said.<\/p>\n

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President Donald Trump speaks to the press as he meets with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Mar. 13, 2025 as Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz listen.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Mandel Ngan\/AFP via Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer echoed Jeffries’ statement in a floor statement in the Senate on Monday.<\/p>\n

“Mr. President, this is one of the most stunning breaches of military intelligence I have read about in a very, very long time,” Schumer said.<\/p>\n

The group chat included Vice President JD Vance, according to Goldberg’s reporting, and that it was spun up prior to a U.S. military operation that Trump<\/a> ordered against<\/a> the militant Houthis, whom the U.S. says are backed by Iran.<\/p>\n

Goldberg told ABC News on Monday<\/a> he initially thought it might have been a “spoof” or “hoax,” but that “it became sort of overwhelmingly clear to me that this was a real group” once the attack occurred.<\/p>\n

Trump, when first asked about the report on Monday, said at the time he didn’t “know anything about it.”<\/p>\n

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National Security Advisor Mike Waltz speaks with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as President Donald Trump meets with French President Emmanuel Macron in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Feb. 24, 2025.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Ludovic Marin\/AFP via Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

When asked about the story on Monday, Hegseth told reporters that he had “heard how it was characterized.”<\/p>\n

He added, “Nobody was texting war plans, and that’s all I have to say about that.”<\/p>\n

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.<\/em><\/p>\n

ABC News’ Fritz Farrow, Luis Martinez, Lauren Peller, Lalee Ibssa, Isabella Murray and Meredith Deliso contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Officials with the White House’s National Security Council say they “are reviewing” how a journalist could have been “inadvertently” added to an 18-member group chat that included several of the nation’s top military officials. Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, wrote in a piece published Monday that he was added to a group chat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5475"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5477,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5475\/revisions\/5477"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}