Top secret US military attack plans were accidentally sent to a reporter hours before they were carried out, according to a report published March 24.
High-level Trump administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, discussed the plans in a group chat on the messaging app Signal. They accidentally included Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, in the chat.
“I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling,” Goldberg wrote in an article published March 24. “I could not believe that the national security leadership of the United States would communicate on Signal about imminent war plans.”
American airstrikes killed at least 53 people in Houthi-controlled parts of Yemen on March 15. President Donald Trump led the charge to ramp up military attacks on the Iran-backed group that controls Yemen’s capital city.
The strikes began around 2 p.m. Eastern time on March 15, but Goldberg wrote that he learned before anyone else. “The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44 a.m.,” he wrote. “The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing.”
Goldberg said he didn’t initially believe the information was accurate. However, the actual strikes that day matched the information he received in the Signal chat. A Defense Department spokesperson later confirmed to Goldberg that the chat was real and his accidental inclusion in it was under investigation. Goldberg said he was first invited to the chat by Trump national security advisor Michael Waltz.
“The information contained in [the texts], if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East,” Goldberg wrote. “I have never seen a breach quite like this.”
Goldberg’s specific inclusion in the chat was particularly interesting, because he and Trump have publicly butted heads in the past — something he notes in the article. He was identified in the group only as “JG,” similarly to how director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was identified as “TG.”
The chat revealed disagreements about the Houthi bombing strategy, with Vance and Hegseth noting that it didn’t match up with other administration priorities.
However, a message from someone with the username “SM” — matching close Trump confidant Stephen Miller — backed the strategy and ended further discussion, according to texts published by The Atlantic.
Strikes against the Houthis have continued in the following days. US bombs hit several Houthi-controlled locations overnight between March 23 and 24, killing at least one person.
—Joseph Wilkinson, New York Daily News (TNS)
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