Braxton Taylor
Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth shared war plans over an unclassified chat app, according to Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. Goldberg was added, apparently accidentally, to a Signal group chat used by the defense secretary, Vice President JD Vance, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, and more than a dozen other principals and staffers to discuss the March 15 renewal of U.S. airstrikes targeting the Houthi terrorist group in Yemen.
The chat’s veracity was confirmed by National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes. “This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” Hughes said in a statement Monday.
The crux of the matter: Hegseth disclosed “precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing,” Goldberg explained, while being particularly careful not to reveal any classified information in his report, which followed two days of discussions among Trump’s national security team. Relatedly, one of the chat messages from user “John Ratcliffe”—putatively, the CIA director—contained “information that might be interpreted as related to actual and current intelligence operations,” Goldberg wrote; he also kept that information out of his report.
Transmitting such details over an unclassified network can be a crime. Several defense officials told the New York Times “that having this type of conversation in a Signal chat group itself could be a violation of the Espionage Act, a law covering the handling of sensitive information. Revealing operational war plans before planned strikes could also put American troops directly into harm’s way.”
It looks as though Trump’s entire national-security team participated in this potential violation of the Espionage Act, veteran intelligence reporter Marcy Wheeler explains. Trump’s national security advisor, Mike Waltz, may have violated the law additionally by setting the Signal threads to autodelete, “likely deliberately defying the Presidential Records Act,” Wheeler adds.
- A more thorough discussion of potential violations of this and other laws appears near the bottom of Goldberg’s Atlantic article.
Hegseth, a former Army major, appeared to deny the incident, insisting to reporters Monday, “Nobody was texting war plans.” (Goldberg’s reply: “He was texting war plans.”) Hegseth also later called Goldberg “deceitful” and a “discredited so-called journalist.”
Fox chief political analyst Brit Hume took a different position, writing on social media, “Oh for God’s sake, the administration has already confirmed the authenticity of the message.”
Worth noting: “We are currently clean on OPSEC,” Hegseth declared in the unsecured group chat.
Accountability watch: Hegseth, in his earlier job as a Fox host, repeatedly denounced “reckless” handling of classified information. He also promised accountability at his SecDef confirmation hearing in January (“Leaders—at all levels—will be held accountable,” he vowed) and repeatedly in the weeks since that hearing.
And just last week, after word leaked of Hegseth’s plan to brief Elon Musk on China war plans, his chief of staff ordered an investigation intended to refer the culprit to “the appropriate criminal law enforcement entity for criminal prosecution.”
Initial POTUS reax: “I don’t know anything about it,” Trump said Monday. However, he told reporters Tuesday morning, “Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man.”
More after the jump…
Welcome to this Tuesday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1918, Ensign John F. McNamara fired on a U-boat off the coast of England, becoming the first U.S. naval aviator to attack a submarine.
OPSEC fail, cont.
Selective outrage on Capitol Hill: “We’re very concerned about and we’ll be looking into it on a bipartisan basis,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said Monday.
“It appears that mistakes were made,” Wicker added. His colleague John Cornyn of Texas, also a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, described it as “a huge screwup.”
“Putting out classified information like that endangers our forces—and I can’t believe that they were knowingly putting that kind of classified information on unclassified systems—it’s just wrong,” said Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., a former Air Force one-star. “And there’s no doubt—I’m an intelligence guy—Russia and China are monitoring both their phones.”
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., a retired Army lieutenant colonel, tweeted: “Pete Hegseth, the most unqualified Secretary of Defense in history, is demonstrating his incompetence by literally leaking classified war plans in the group chat.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said he has no interest in investigating the incident. “It’d be a terrible mistake for there to be adverse consequences on any of the people that were involved in that call,” he told reporters. “I think the administration has acknowledged it was a mistake and they’ll tighten up and make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he said in a statement to The Hill. “What you did see, though, I think, was top-level officials doing their job, doing it well and executing on a plan with precision,” he assured reporters Monday. Politico, Axios, and The Hill have more from the House and Senate.
Additional reactions:
- “There is not an officer alive whose career would survive a security breach like that,” wrote David French, Army JAG-turned-New York Times columnist. “It would normally result in instant consequences (relief from command, for example) followed by a comprehensive investigation and, potentially, criminal charges.”
- “In normal times, this would see people sacked,” wrote Mick Ryan, a retired Australian army two-star. “For a Secretary of Defense who allegedly values a warfighting ethos, this shortfall in security is appalling,” he added.
- “Let’s be honest — if a mid-ranking national security official had shared classified intel & war plans on a phone app, they’d be swiftly prosecuted & likely imprisoned,” wrote Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute. “Shouldn’t @SecDef, @MikeWaltz47, @SecRubio etc. be held to an even higher account? YES.”
Also worth flagging: VP Vance’s disdain for Europe. “3 percent of US trade runs through the suez. 40 percent of European trade does…There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices,” an account identified as “JD Vance” wrote to the group. “if you think we should do it [that is, strike the Houthis] let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again,” he added in a message directed to Hegseth. The Hegseth account responded three minutes later, “VP: I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC.”
Mick Ryan certainly noticed Vance’s read on U.S. foreign policy, and warned his readers about “this administration’s unwillingness to play the role that American governments have for the past three quarters of a century—to help secure the major seaways of the world for free trade. Where once this was seen as responsibility for U.S. administrations, and something that was good for America and everyone else, this administration sees such responsibilities as an albatross around its neck,” Ryan reiterated.
Related reading:
Around the Defense Department
Update: Florida businessman John Phelan was confirmed as the next Secretary of the Navy. His nomination advanced Monday in a 62-30 vote in the Senate.
Phelan “has no prior military experience,” writes The Hill, but he argued to lawmakers last month that this was a plus because it “made him an ideal candidate to fix the issues that have plagued the Navy such as failed audits, workforce management issues, cost overruns and delays in shipbuilding.”
More bio: “He founded Rugger Management LLC and previously served as the chairman and chief investment officer of the firm that oversaw the fortune of Dell Technologies founder Michael Dell,” the U.S. Naval Institute News reports. “He’s a 1986 graduate of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and has an MBA from Harvard Business School. He is also an avid art collector.” Read more, here.
F/A-XX contract coming this week? “The U.S. Navy is expected to announce this week who will build its next-generation carrier-based stealth fighter – a program worth hundreds of billions over its lifetime and a key part of plans to confront China,” Reuters reported Tuesday. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman are competing.
The aircraft is expected to replace the Navy’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fleet. “The first production jets are expected to enter service in the 2030s, while F/A-18s are expected to remain in service into the 2040s,” the wire service writes. More, here.
Additional reading:
Trump 2.0
Counter-terrorism efforts are being reduced by Musk-Trump cuts. Tens of millions of dollars slated for violence prevention have been cut or are frozen as DOGE steamrolls the national-security sector, ProPublica reported Thursday, citing nearly two dozen current and former national security personnel, federally funded researchers and nonprofit grant recipients.
The gist: Just last week, “with scant warning, Homeland Security cut around $20 million for more than two dozen programs from another wing of DHS, including efforts aimed at stopping terrorist attacks and school shooters,” Hannah Allam writes for ProPublica.
“Among the projects at risk is a national compilation of threats to public officials, including assassination attempts against Trump; research on the violent misogyny that floods social media platforms; a long-term study of far-right extremists who are attempting to disengage from hate movements,” according to Allam. “The studies are underway at research centers and university labs that, in some cases, are funded almost entirely by Homeland Security.”
Said one source: “The vibe is: How to use DHS to go after migrants, immigrants. That is the vibe, that is the only vibe, there is no other vibe. It’s wild — it’s as if the rest of the department doesn’t exist.” Continue reading, here.
Related reading:
Read the full article here