By: Isaac Dillard
Founder of Wikileaks Julian Assange once said, “The best way to keep a secret is to never have one. Unfortunately, top United States national security officials found that out the hard way.
The Atlantic reported that plans for an upcoming airstrike in Yemen were leaked in a secure group chat that included its editor-in-chief. The leak happened on an encrypted messaging app called Signal. Experts say that the app is safer to use than traditional texting, but it can still be hacked.
Public Domain
The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg gave insight into how the events unfolded in an article he wrote discussing the matter.
“The world found out shortly before 2 p.m. Eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen,” Goldberg wrote. “I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44 a.m. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing.”
Goldberg also said that he received the invite to the group chat from President Trump’s National Security Advisor Mike Waltz.
The Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, originally discredited the report, saying, “nobody was texting war plans.” This statement was later proven false after members of the Trump administration said that the chat appeared to be legitimate.
The National Security Council, which includes Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, announced that they would be investigating how Goldberg’s number got added to the chat.
Members of Congress were very quick to express their feelings on the leak.
“If true, this story represents one of the most egregious failures of operational security and common sense I have ever seen,” Democratic Senator Jack Reed said in a statement. “Military operations need to be handled with utmost discretion, using approved, secure lines of communication, because American lives are on the line.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson offered the officials who leaked the information more leniency.
“I think it would be a terrible mistake for there to be adverse consequences on any of the people that were involved in that call,” Johnson told reporters. “They were trying to do a good job, the mission was accomplished with precision.”
The leak did not affect the outcome of the mission. The United States carried out a series of airstrikes against Houthi rebels that destroyed “communications nodes, weapons factories and even some of their over-the-water drone production facilities,” according to Mike Waltz.
It is too early to tell whether there will be consequences for the leak. The National Security Council’s investigation is still ongoing.