US War Plans Leaked to Reporter in Group Chat

U.S. officials were stunned—and in many instances horrified—by The Atlantic’s revelation that senior members of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet had inadvertently shared detailed operational plans and other likely highly classified information about U.S. military actions in Yemen with a reporter who was accidentally included in a messaging group thread.

The Trump administration acknowledged that the messages, shared via the non-government encrypted app Signal, appear to be genuine, but did not provide an explanation for why senior officials were discussing national defense information outside of approved classified government systems.

Senior officials immediately scrambled behind the scenes to review the use of Signal amid concerns that Trump administration officials are relying too heavily on it to conduct sensitive government work – posing a potentially grave risk to US national security, current and former officials said.

As soon as the story published, it was blasted out in multiple text threads throughout the Trump administration, with officials reacting with disbelief, according to those who spoke to CNN privately.

Multiple administration officials told CNN they were shocked, with at least two speculating that this could result in the dismissal of one of their colleagues.

Career national security officials expressed deep dismay, noting that holding sensitive conversations on an unclassified platform risked exposing the information to foreign hackers – and that any other employee who had done so would almost certainly have been immediately fired and probably referred for prosecution.

According to The Atlantic, national security adviser Mike Waltz earlier this month convened a text conversation with top US officials, including Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, to discuss strikes on Houthi militants in Yemen who had been threatening international shipping in the Red Sea. Waltz, apparently accidentally, added Atlantic Editor in Chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, to the thread.

The messages started with a discussion about when the action should be launched while Goldberg read along. The strikes were carried out and the principals congratulated themselves on a job well done during a brief after-action discussion, before Goldberg removed himself.

Signal is an encrypted messaging app that is popular around the world, including among journalists and government officials. Biden administration officials also routinely used it to discuss logistical planning for meetings and at times to communicate with foreign counterparts.

Current and former officials described the use of Signal for military planning—among the government’s most protected secrets, given the potential risks to American service members—as a deeply alarming threat to national security. Multiple officials said they could not recall any case in which Signal had been used to communicate classified information or discuss military operations. According to one former senior official, the high-level personnel on the group chat have access to secure communications systems—such as encrypted lines in their vehicles—and staff dedicated to keeping sensitive information secure.

“They broke every procedure known to man about protecting operational material before a military strike,” said a former senior intelligence official. “You have a total breakdown in security about a military operation.”

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