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War chat row: White House says no classified material were shared on Signal
President Donald Trump's press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that no classified material was sent on the thread.
The White House on Tuesday insisted that no classified material was sent on a chat between senior officials about strikes on Yemen that was accidentally shared with a journalist.
“No war plans were discussed,” President Donald Trump's press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote in a post on X. “No classified material was sent to the thread.”
The Atlantic magazine's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, in an article, claimed that he was inadvertently invited into a group chat where top US officials planned for strikes on Yemen's Houthi rebels.
While Trump informed the public about the strikes on March 15, Goldberg claimed that he knew about them hours earlier as he was part of the chat, which included US defense secretary Pete Hegseth and vice president JD Vance.
Top Democrats were quick to condemn the incident, describing it as a major security breach and calling for an investigation to determine how it happened.
Also Read | What were the war plans White House mistakenly shared with The Atlantic journalist?
On Tuesday, Leavitt said that the White House Counsel’s Office has provided guidance on several different platforms for Trump’s top officials to communicate as safely and efficiently as possible.
She also criticised Jeffrey Goldberg, saying that the magazine editor is “well-known for his sensationalist spin.”
“Thanks to the strong and decisive leadership of President Trump and everyone in the group, the Houthi strikes were successful and effective. Terrorists were killed, and that’s what matters most to President Trump,” Karoline Leavitt added.
Also Read | How a Signal request led Jeffrey Goldberg to access US war plans on Yemen
Earlier today, President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that he was unaware of the incident. "I don't know anything about it. I'm not a big fan of The Atlantic," Trump said.
What Jeffrey Goldberg said
Jeffrey Goldberg said he was unexpectedly invited on March 13 to an encrypted chat group on the Signal messaging app called the “Houthi PC small group”.
The editor claims that hours before those military strikes against Yemen's Houthis on March 15, defence secretary Pete Hegseth posted operational details about the plan in the messaging group, “including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing”.
He added that US officials in the group also debated whether the US should carry out the strikes, and at one point Vance appeared to question whether US allies in Europe, more exposed to shipping disruption in the region, deserved US help.
