On Tuesday, President Donald Trump defended his national security adviser, Mike Waltz, the creator of the infamous Signal group chat in which administration officials reportedly planned major military strikes on the Houthis in Yemen. Trump said Waltz had “learned a lesson” after the national security adviser added Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg to the group — about as close as it seems the president will come to acknowledging the egregious act of discussing a U.S. military operation on a commercial chat app.
While Waltz has rightfully come under fire for starting the chat and adding Goldberg, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth deserves the most scrutiny.
Today, the full extent of Hegseth’s texts in the Signal thread at 11:44 a.m. March 15 were revealed. It was Hegseth who posted a “TEAM UPDATE” that contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen.
It was Hegseth who put the precise timing and sequencing of the entire operation into an unclassified text app.
It was Hegseth who revealed the aircraft that would be used to conduct the strikes before the operation took place.
It was Hegseth who moved classified information to a commercial text app that could have been intercepted by our adversaries.
And it was Hegseth who put our brave service members, including the fighter pilots preparing to conduct the operation, in mortal danger.
The Atlantic’s reporting is full of shocking revelations about how the entire national security apparatus and some of the most powerful people in the world apparently make military decisions as casually as a group of friends planning a dinner.
By typing this information into a Signal chat, Hegseth created the possibility that an adversary could see what the U.S. military was planning to do, who was being targeted and when it was going to happen. Even an encrypted app like Signal is not immune from hackers. Just days before this security breach, a Pentagonwide advisory warned that “a vulnerability has been identified in the Signal Messenger Application” and that “Russian professional hacking groups” were looking to exploit it.
There is not a military operation in modern American history whose planning isn’t classified.
Though the White House and top intelligence officials have denied that any classified information was shared on the chat, there is not a military operation in modern American history whose planning isn’t classified. What’s more, classified systems are physically separate from unclassified ones — different email addresses, different servers, no ability to copy and paste information from one to the other. That means Hegseth had to open his classified email or binder, and manually type the military strike details into Signal.
Details of operations falling into the wrong hands give adversaries the ability to wreak havoc on the operation — or worse, retaliate against our troops. Imagine if a hacking group linked to Iran was able to penetrate the Signal chat. It’s not hard to picture an adversarial group selling the content of Hegseth’s 11:44 a.m. text to the Houthis or their backers in Iran, who have previously helped the Houthis shoot down unmanned U.S. aircraft. Armed with head start knowledge of where U.S. planes were flying and when, the Houthis could have targeted U.S. military fighter jets and ships participating in the strike — possibly leading to catastrophic consequences.
Due to the incredible ineptitude of Hegseth and the individuals on the Signal thread by somehow unknowingly inviting a reporter into their group chat, how can our allies and partners trust the United States with sensitive and classified information? Who is to say there aren’t more of these chats?
Preventing those sorts of outcomes is why discussions of operations are held in classified rooms, where the commander overseeing the strike — in this case, the commander of U.S. Central Command — presents the plan to those authorized to be there. When I worked as a Pentagon spokesperson, we would not even confirm an operation took place unless we knew the operation had concluded and our pilots were safe. It’s this level of security and caution that protect our troops who put their lives on the line for their country.
Hegseth bragged about restoring meritocracy and competence to the Pentagon. In less than 100 days, he has done the opposite. It is time for Congress to investigate why the defense secretary of the world’s most powerful military risked the lives of our U.S. service members, all for the convenience of a group chat.
Sabrina Singh
Sabrina Singh served as the deputy press secretary for the Department of Defense during the Biden administration.