On March 15, the U.S. bombed Houthi rebels in Yemen — but Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg knew specific details about its "secret" war plans hours beforehand, thanks to an extremely careless text he received by controversial Trump-pick Pete Hegseth.
"The world found out shortly before 2 p.m. eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen. I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming," Goldberg explained today.
"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," he said.
And it wasn't just the incompetence of Hegseth — a former Fox News host before Donald Trump thought him worthy enough to become U.S. Secretary of Defense — that led to the security breach. It was more of a group effort, that started with Trump's National Security Adviser Michael Waltz.
From The Atlantic:
On Tuesday, March 11, I received a connection request on Signal from a user identified as Michael Waltz. Signal is an open-source encrypted messaging service popular with journalists and others who seek more privacy than other text-messaging services are capable of delivering. I assumed that the Michael Waltz in question was President Donald Trump's national security adviser. I did not assume, however, that the request was from the actual Michael Waltz. I have met him in the past, and though I didn't find it particularly strange that he might be reaching out to me, I did think it somewhat unusual, given the Trump administration's contentious relationship with journalists—and Trump's periodic fixation on me specifically. It immediately crossed my mind that someone could be masquerading as Waltz in order to somehow entrap me. It is not at all uncommon these days for nefarious actors to try to induce journalists to share information that could be used against them. …
Two days later—Thursday—at 4:28 p.m., I received a notice that I was to be included in a Signal chat group. It was called the "Houthi PC small group." …
A message to the group, from "Michael Waltz," read as follows: "Team – establishing a principles [sic] group for coordination on Houthis, particularly for over the next 72 hours. My deputy Alex Wong is pulling together a tiger team at deputies/agency Chief of Staff level following up from the meeting in the Sit Room this morning for action items and will be sending that out later this evening."
The next day, things got even stranger. …
At this point, a fascinating policy discussion commenced. The account labeled "JD Vance" responded at 8:16: "Team, I am out for the day doing an economic event in Michigan. But I think we are making a mistake." (Vance was indeed in Michigan that day.) The Vance account goes on to state, "3 percent of US trade runs through the suez. 40 percent of European trade does. There is a real risk that the public doesn't understand this or why it's necessary. The strongest reason to do this is, as POTUS said, to send a message." …
Read Goldberg's entire account here, at the Atlantic.
Previously: Hegseth's pledge to remain sober is adorably consequence-free
