Journalist reads along: US ministers discuss military strikes in Yemen on Signal

Contents

High-ranking representatives of the US government have exchanged secret information on US attacks on Yemen in a group chat on Signal, in which a journalist was apparently able to read along unintentionally. This was made public on Monday evening by Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the US magazine The Atlantic, who was part of the chat. As a result, he may have documented several violations of the law by the participating government representatives around Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. According to consistent media reports, the White House has since confirmed the authenticity of the chat.

A signal group with several US ministers

As Goldberg explains in the article, he was contacted on Signal on March 11 by a user named Michael Waltz. This is the name of US President Donald Trump's National Security Advisor. He confirmed the request and two days later he was added to a Signal group called "Houthi PC small group". The Houthi rebels are a warring party in Yemen, so "PC" probably stands for "principals committee", a working group of various US ministers. The editors of The Atlantic had serious doubts about the authenticity of the group and assumed it was a disinformation campaign or an attempt to expose journalists. Nevertheless, Goldberg remained in the group.

In the days that followed, several conversations about an allegedly imminent attack on Yemen were exchanged and disagreements became apparent. For example, the US Vice President explained that this would be a mistake because the attacks would benefit European trade interests more than US interests. Several subsequent statements, which Goldberg quotes in detail, give the impression that Vance was persuaded in this chat to agree to the project after all, which he ultimately did. Later, in the "shockingly irresponsible" group chat, Secretary of Defense Hegseth had unfolded numerous details about the impending attack.

Attacks confirm the authenticity of the group

Goldberg was reportedly still skeptical at the time, but expected that it would become clear at the aforementioned time whether the chat was genuine or not. In fact, he found the first reports about the US attacks on Yemen's capital Sanaa at the exact time mentioned. A short time later, the people involved were congratulated in a post using only the emojis "👊🇺🇸🔥". The journalist, who was now convinced of the group's authenticity, removed himself from it. A spokesperson for the National Security Council explained shortly afterwards that "this appears to be an authentic news chain" and that it was being investigated how someone had been added by mistake.

Goldberg went on to write that he had not yet experienced a comparable incident. While it is not unusual for US government officials to use Signal, it is only for appointments and logistical arrangements, not for "detailed and top-secret conversations about imminent military strikes". The National Security Advisor who put the group together may have violated several provisions of the Espionage Act, writes Goldberg, citing various experts. There are strict guidelines and specially secured devices for such conversations, which the participants are all allowed to have at home. Signal, on the other hand, is not approved for this.

Communication properly archived?

Another problem identified by the journalist was that some messages in the chat were set to be deleted after one or four weeks. This raises the question of whether the parties involved violated federal laws on archiving official communications with this communication. The – apparently inadvertent – disclosure of the information to a journalist is also a prime example of a leak. Goldberg recalls that Donald Trump once entered the White House with unjustified criticism of his opponent Hillary Clinton's handling of official emails and was later accused of mishandling classified documents. However, he was not part of the group.

(mho)