There are few more sensitive US presidential actions, full of danger, than when and where to use American military force.
If this information were obtained in advance by American opponents, they could put life at risk – and the national foreign policy objectives.
Fortunately for the Trump administration, a group chat with information on an imminent United States strike in Yemen between high national security officials on the signal of encrypted chat app did not fall into the wrong hands.
Unfortunately for the Trump administration, the message thread was observed by an influential political journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg.
The editor -in -chief of the Atlantic magazine, in an article published on Monday on the website of its publication, says that it seems to have inadvertently added to the chat by the National Security Councilor of the White House Michael Waltz.
The members of the group seemed to include vice -president JD Vance, the CIA director John Ratcliffe, the head of the staff of the White House Susie Wiles and the defense secretary Pete Hegseth, among others.
A spokesman for the National Security Council told the BBC that the “text messages thread” seems to be authentic “.
Goldberg says that the group discussed politics and discussed operational details on the imminent military strike of the United States-Conversations that provided a rare look almost in real time within the internal functioning of the National Senior Security Team of Trump.
“Incredible job,” Waltz wrote to the group, a few minutes after the United States of the United States on Houthi’s goals in Yemen took place on Saturday 15 March.
The emojis of an American flag, a punch and a fire followed. Other high officials joined the congratulations.
These celebrations of the White House may prove to be short -lived after Monday’s revelations.
The fact that a stranger can be inadvertently added to the sensitive national defense conversations represents an extraordinary failure of operational security by the Trump administration.
And that these conversations were taking place outside the secure government channels designed for such sensitive communications could violate the spy law, which establishes rules for the management of classified information.
“This administration is playing quickly and the most classified information of our nation and makes all Americans less sure”, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the democrat of classification of the Senate Intelligence Committee, published in X.
Goldberg says that officials were “lucky” has been involuntarily added to the group chat.
The democratic deputy Chris Deluzio declared in a press declaration that the Committee for the armed services of the Chamber, on which it is located, must conduct a complete investigation and hearing on the matter as soon as possible.
“This is an outrageous national security violation and the heads should roll,” he said.
Criticisms were also not limited to democrats.
Don Bacon, a Republican deputy of Nebraska, told the Axios political website that the action of the administration was “inconceivable”.
“None of this should have been sent to unsafe systems,” said Waltz messaging. “Russia and China are definitely monitoring its unre nice phone.”
With the Republicans in control both of the Chamber of Representatives and the Senate, Trump’s party should start any type of formal congress investigation on the matter.
The republican speaker of the Mike Johnson house seemed to minimize such a possibility, as he told journalists that the White House had admitted his mistake.
“They will squeeze and make sure it doesn’t happen anymore,” he said. “I don’t know what else you can say about it.”
Trump, for his part, begged ignorance when he was asked by journalists in the oval office on the history of the Atlantic, saying that he was the first he had heard of it.
The White House then issued a declaration by defending the President’s National Security Team, including Waltz.
On Monday evening, however, the rumors in Washington were upstreaming that high -level resignation could be necessary, carefully centered on the waltz, whose invitation brought Goldberg into the group conversation. The White House did not provide further comments even if this speculation has grown.
In its afternoon declaration, the White House noticed that the strikes were “very successful and effective”. This could help to minimize some political repercussions from the discussions of the chat group, which have also revealed some divisions within the Trump national security team.
JD Vance was the highest rank participant in the signal text group that discussed detailed plans on the United States military strike in Yemen.
While the vice -president generally marked in Lockstep with Trump in his public comments on foreign policy, in private discussions he said he thought that the administration was committing a “error” by undertaking military actions.
He observed that the Houthi forces targeted in Yemen represented a larger threat to European expedition, while the danger to American trade was minimal.
“I’m not sure that the president is aware of how inconsistent this is with his message in Europe right now,” wrote Vance.
“There is a further risk that we see a moderate peak to severe in oil prices.”
The vice -president continued saying that he would support what the team decided and “keep these concerns for me”.
“But there is a strong argument to delay this month, do the messaging work on why this is important, see where the economy, etc.”
This is far from a vice -president does not agree with their president in the field of foreign policy.
Dick Cheney collided with George W Bush in the last years of his presidency for the management of war in Iraq, and Joe Biden believed that Barack Obama’s secret operation to kill Osama Bin Laden was too risky.
This is also not the first time that the management of the sensitive national security material has generated titles. Both Trump and Joe Biden were designed for their possession of information classified after leaving the assignment. The special consultant Jack Smith has offended Trump for alleged violations relating to his refusal to deliver material stored in his mar-a-lago-lago-one case that was abandoned when Trump won the re-election last year.
In 2016, the use by Hillary Clinton of a private e -mail server for communications while the United States Secretary of State became a big problem during his successful presidential campaign.
Like this group chat of the White House, some of these messages have provided information on the internal mechanisms of the Clinton team.
Their revelation also proved politically harmful. A handful of his stored messages was subsequently considered to contain “top secret” information.
“We cannot have someone in the oval office that does not understand the meaning of the confidential or classified word,” said Trump during that countryside – one of the many attacks in Clinton for what he said was a clear violation of the federal law.
On Monday afternoon, Clinton climbed on social media to publish his, brief comment on the revelations of the group chat of the White House on Signal.
“You’re making fun of me,” he wrote. [BBC]