The leak happened as the US launched strikes against Iran-backed Houthis and despite a crackdown on sensitive information leaks.
Top national security officials in the Trump administration, including Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, have reportedly sent war plans for upcoming military strikes against the Houthis to a group chat in a messaging app that included The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, the magazine reported in a story published on Monday.
The US National Security Council stated that the text chain “appears to be authentic”.
Editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg reported that the material in the text chain “contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the US would be deploying, and attack sequencing.”
It was not immediately clear whether the specifics of the military operation were classified, but they often are and, at the very least, are kept secure to protect service personnel and operational security.
The US has carried out airstrikes against the Houthis since the militant group began targeting commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea in November 2023.
Just two hours after Goldberg received the details of the attack on 15 March, the US started launching a series of airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen.
Pete Hegseth slams journalist while Trump denies knowledge
The National Security Council said in a statement that it was investigating how a journalist’s number was added to the chain in the Signal group chat.
Government officials have used the Signal app for organisational correspondence, but it is not classified. Privacy and tech experts say the popular end-to-end encrypted messaging and voice call app is more secure than conventional texting.
The information leak occurred as Hegseth’s office had just announced a crackdown on leaks of sensitive information, including the potential use of polygraphs on defence personnel to determine how reporters have received information.
Hegseth in his first comments on the matter attacked Goldberg as “deceitful” and a “discredited so-called journalist” while alluding to previous critical reporting of Trump from the publication. He did not shed light on why Signal was being used to discuss the sensitive operation or how Goldberg ended up on the message chain.
“Nobody was texting war plans and that’s all I have to say about that,” Hegseth said in an exchange with reporters after landing in Hawaii on Monday as he began his first trip to the Indo-Pacific as defence secretary.
In a statement late Monday, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said the president still has the “utmost confidence” in Waltz and the national security team.
Earlier Monday, Trump told reporters: “I don’t know anything about it. You’re telling me about it for the first time.” He added that The Atlantic was “not much of a magazine.”