The Atlantic releases strike group chat messages

On March 24th, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg published a damning story about being added to the ‘Houthi PC Small Group’ on Signal by Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz. In it, he described inadvertently becoming privy to high-level military operation planning that should never have taken place on Signal by people who really should have known better. The administration spent the next two days saying that the contents of the chat were “nonclassified.” On March 26th, The Atlantic released the texts, which included weather conditions for targeted strikes, descriptions of the targets, confirmations, congratulations, names of specific drones used in the attack, and more. Previously, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth claimed, “Nobody was texting war plans. And that’s all I have to say about that.” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that “No ‘war plans’ were discussed” (but also later emailed The Atlantic to say “we object to the release” of the texts). At the subsequent hearing, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard reiterated the claim that “no classified material” was shared. In a follow-up article on Wednesday, The Atlantic released the messages. Having previously omitted but alluded to details about bombing targets in Yemen, The Atlantic reached out to several government agencies, since so many government officials, including President Donald Trump, have been repeatedly describing the chat content as nonclassified. Leavitt had replied, again, that the texts contained “no classified information.” The Atlantic proceeded to publish the unredacted messages, withholding the name of a CIA intelligence officer. According to The Atlantic, Hegseth’s “not war plans” included: > “1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package)” > “1345: ‘Trigger Based’ F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME – also, Strike Drones Launch (Mq-9s)” > “1410: More F-18s LAUNCH (2nd strike package)” > “1415: Strike Drones on Target (THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP, pending earlier ‘Trigger Based’ targets)” > “1536 F-19 2nd Strike Starts - also, first sea-based Tomahawks launched.” > “MORE TO FOLLOW (per timeline)” > “We are currently clean on OPSEC” > “Godspeed to our Warriors.” Additionally, The Atlantic quotes Waltz’s text: “Typing too fast. The first target - their top missile guy - we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed.” The Atlantic adds: > Vance responded a minute later: “Excellent.” Thirty-five minutes after that, Ratcliffe, the CIA director, wrote, “A good start,” which Waltz followed with a text containing a fist emoji, an American-flag emoji, and a fire emoji. The Houthi-run Yemeni health ministry reported that at least 53 people were killed in the strikes, a number that has not been independently verified. [Media: https://twitter.com/SenMarkKelly/status/1904878146068902146] Earlier this week, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, a Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, called this use of the Signal group chat a demonstration of a “pattern of an amazing cavalier attitude towards classified information” that “is reckless, sloppy and stunning.” Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona called the debacle “amateur hour.” Democratic Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island said if the incident did in fact occur it “represents one of the most egregious failures of operational security and common sense I have ever seen.” Meanwhile, Republican Rep. Don Bacon from Nebraska called it “unconscionable,” and Republican Sen. John Cornyn from Texas said, “It sounds like a huge screw-up. ... Is there any other way to describe it?” On Tuesday, Trump told NBC News that the situation “turned out not to be a serious one” and referred to it as a “glitch.”