US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz has taken responsibility for a group chat in which senior officials planned military strikes in Yemen, inadvertently including The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg. He reported that a user named “Mike Waltz” had added him to the chat, on Wednesday, the 26th of March, reports the British broadcaster BBC.
While President Donald Trump and US intelligence chiefs said the security risks were insignificant and claimed that no classified material was released, some Democrats and Republicans have called for an investigation into what several lawmakers described as a serious breach.
“I TAKE FULL RESPONSIBILITY. I CREATED THIS GROUP,” WALTZ SAID IN AN INTERVIEW WITH FOX NEWS ON TUESDAY, ADDING THAT IT WAS “EMBARRASSING”.
In his interview, Waltz could not explain how Goldberg ended up in the chat group, but unlike Trump, he said that none of his staff was responsible and that another unnamed contact should have been added instead of Goldberg.
“We have the best technical minds to check how this happened,” Waltz continued, adding that Goldberg’s number had not been saved on his phone.
“I can assure you one hundred percent that I don’t know him,” said Waltz, adding that he has spoken to Elon Musk to help find out how this really happened.
President Trump played down the incident, calling it a “glitch” that had “no impact” on operations.
Speaking to Newsmax, Trump said that a Waltz’s lower-level official had Goldberg’s phone number.
The group reportedly included 18 members of the Trump administration and national security officials, including US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who on Tuesday at a Senate hearing denied that any classified information had been disclosed.
The panel also included Vice President JD Vance and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who also denied any wrongdoing.
“This Signal chat situation highlights the Trump administration’s negligent and grossly incompetent national security strategy,” said Mark Warner, the Democratic vice-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
BNN already reported that journalist Goldberg was added to a Signal group chat where secret military plans for US strikes in Yemen were discussed, including weapons packages, targets and timing, which the journalist did not publish. The US carried out the strikes on the 15th of March and, according to the journalist, this was discussed in a chat room two hours before the strikes were carried out.
The report shocked Washington and questions were raised as to why senior officials were discussing such sensitive issues on a potentially vulnerable app. Some national security experts argued that the leak was a serious operational error.
The non-partisan watchdog group American Oversight sued the officials who participated in the chat for alleged violations of the Federal Records Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.
The group claimed that by setting the chat to automatically delete messages, it violated a law that requires White House officials to submit all their records to the National Archives.