As a result, Goldberg was sitting in a supermarket parking lot, watching US cruise missiles rain down on Yemen—two hours after being texted the precise plan by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The group, named “Houthi PC small group,” was meant for top officials like National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, VP JD [nice sofa] Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, DNI Tulsi Gabbard (yes, really), and of course, the ever-ominous “S M” (presumably Stephen Miller, who chimed in with predictable enthusiasm for retaliatory force and extracting economic tribute from Europe).
From weapons load-outs to geopolitical whining about European freeloaders, the prelude to an American bombing campaign was hashed out on Signal, a messaging app typically used by journalists and privacy enthusiasts.
There were also long discussions about how the Americans could get Europe to pay for the attacks, even if no European government gave the attacks its blessing or even had been included in the chats.
The best part about the cock up was that it was not as if they invited one of their tame cronies from Fox News or one of the right-wing bloggers who has White House credentials. It was a real journalist of a national magazine that writes about foreign policy for a living and was happy to publish most of it for LOLs.
Officials exchanged prayers, flex emojis, and “good job” texts after the missiles struck. Goldberg, unsure whether he was being duped by an elaborate spoof or a rogue AI text generator, watched reality confirm the truth: the chat was real. The bombs fell. And US policy had, indeed, been conducted via Signal with zero OPSEC.
There was another potential problem: Waltz set some of the messages in the Signal group to disappear after one week, while others were set to disappear after four. That raises questions about whether the officials may have violated federal records law: Text messages about official acts are considered records that should be preserved.
University of Maryland and the former director of litigation at the National Archives and Records Administration professor Jason R. Baron said: “Under the records laws applicable to the White House and federal agencies, all government employees are prohibited from using electronic-messaging applications such as Signal for official business unless those messages are promptly forwarded or copied to an official government account.”
The National Security Council confirmed the authenticity of the messages, saying that the Signal group showed “deep and thoughtful policy coordination.” Which is somewhat akin to saying Watergate was merely an enthusiastic team-building exercise.
Not only were war plans sent over an app unsuitable for classified communications, but they were also shared with someone who should not have had access.
President Trump said he "knew nothing" and when asked about the security breach, attacked the publication as “going out of business.” Although one would like to think that the President might know that his star chamber are holding planning meetings to bomb a country and get another to foot the bill. Of course, they must have kept him in the loop.
