The disclosure follows two intense days during which Trump's senior most Cabinet members of his intelligence and defense agencies have struggled to explain how details that current and former U.S. officials have said would have been classified wound up on an unclassified Signal chat that included Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg,
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said no classified information was posted to the Signal chat.
"We do talk about operations and [about] when things are going to happen or when they have happened and so forth, but we don't want to tip off our enemies. And of course, we know that the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, North Koreans and others are listening to what they can – and they'll use what they can against us." "If the facts demonstrate that this was prior to operations and they used an unclassified, albeit encrypted Signal app, they shouldn't be doing that. Now, the fact that it was evidently a successful series of strikes against the Houthis, I applaud that. But our discipline needs to be unquestioned – and the fact that you had a reporter who was loose and was monitoring something like this, that in itself is a problem." Robert Maginnis |
Hegseth has refused to say whether he posted classified information onto Signal. He is traveling in the Indo-Pacific and to date has only scoffed at questions, saying he did not reveal “war plans.” Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, that it was up to Hegseth to determine whether the information he was posting was classified or not.
In the group chat, Hegseth posted:
“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-18 2nd Strike Starts – also, first sea-based Tomahawks launched.”
“MORE TO FOLLOW (per timeline)”
“We are currently clean on OPSEC” — that is, operational security.
“Godspeed to our Warriors.”
Goldberg has said he asked the White House if it opposed publication and that the White House responded that it would prefer he did not publish.
Signal is a publicly available app that provides encrypted communications, but it can be hacked. It is not approved for carrying classified information. On March 14, one day before the strikes, the Defense Department cautioned personnel about the vulnerability of Signal, specifically that Russia was attempting to hack the app, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
3/27/2025 - Sidebar added.
