Top officials in the administration of US President Donald Trump texted a group chat including a journalist plans for strikes on Yemen’s Houthi rebels, the White House said, an extraordinary security breach that shocked the political elite.
Trump announced the strikes on March 15, but The Atlantic magazine’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg on Monday wrote that he had hours of advance notice via the group chat on Signal, which included US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and US Vice President J.D. Vance.
Top Democrats were quick to condemn the breach, saying it was potentially illegal and calling for an investigation to find out how it happened, while Republicans tried to play down the incident.
Photo: AFP
“The message thread that was reported appears to be authentic, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” US National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said.
The White House said Trump “continues to have the utmost confidence in his national security team,” after the US president earlier said he did not “know anything about” the issue.
Hegseth, a former Fox News host with no experience running a huge organization like the Pentagon, took no responsibility for the security breach as he spoke to reporters late on Monday.
He instead attacked Goldberg and insisted that “nobody was texting war plans,” despite the White House confirming the breach.
Goldberg wrote that Hegseth sent information on the strikes, including on “targets, weapons the US would be deploying, and attack sequencing,” to the group chat.
“According to the lengthy Hegseth text, the first detonations in Yemen would be felt two hours hence, at 1:45pm eastern time,” Goldberg wrote — a timeline that was borne out on the ground in Yemen.
The leak could have been highly damaging if Goldberg had publicized details of the plan in advance, but he did not do so.
The journalist said he was added to the group chat two days earlier, and received messages from other top government officials designating representatives who would work on the issue.
A person identified as Vance on March 14 expressed doubts about carrying out the strikes, saying he hated “bailing Europe out again,” as nations there were more affected by Houthi attacks on shipping than the US.
Group chat contributors identified as US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Hegseth both sent messages arguing only Washington had the capability to carry out the strikes, with the latter official saying he shared Vance’s “loathing of European free-loading.”
US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer described it as “one of the most stunning breaches of military intelligence I have read about,” and called for a full investigation.
Former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton — who was repeatedly attacked by Trump for using a private e-mail server while she was in office — posted on social media: “You have got to be kidding me.”
“Some of these issues ... they should only be discussed face to face,” former US national security adviser John Bolton told CNN. “I have no faith that the Department of Justice will prosecute anyone involved.”
RESTRAINTS: Should China’s actions pose any threat to Taiwan’s security, economic or social systems, China would be excluded from major financial institutions, the bill says The US House of Representatives on Monday passed the PROTECT Taiwan Act, which states that Washington would exclude China from participating in major global financial organizations if its actions directly threaten Taiwan’s security. The bill, proposed by Republican Representative Frank Lucas, passed with 395 votes in favor and two against. It stipulates that if China’s actions pose any threat to Taiwan’s security, economic or social systems, the US would, “to the maximum extent practicable,” exclude Beijing from international financial institutions, including the G20, the Bank for International Settlements and the Financial Stability Board. The bill makes it clear that China must be prepared
PEACE AT LAST? UN experts had warned of threats and attacks ahead of the voting, but after a turbulent period, Bangladesh has seemingly reacted to the result with calm The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) yesterday celebrated a landslide victory in the first elections held since a deadly 2024 uprising, with party leader Tarique Rahman to become prime minister. Bangladesh Election Commission figures showed that the BNP alliance had won 212 seats, compared with 77 for the Islamist-led Jamaat-e-Islami alliance. The US embassy congratulated Rahman and the BNP for a “historic victory,” while India praised Rahman’s “decisive win” in a significant step after recent rocky relations with Bangladesh. China and Pakistan, which grew closer to Bangladesh since the uprising and the souring of ties with India, where ousted Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina
FAST-TRACK: The deal is to be sent to the legislature, but time is of the essence, as Trump had raised tariffs on Seoul when it failed to quickly ratify a similar pact Taiwan and the US on Thursday signed a trade agreement that caps US tariffs on Taiwanese goods at 15 percent and provides preferential market access for US industrial and agricultural exports, including cars, and beef and pork products. The Taiwan-US Agreement on Reciprocal Trade confirms a 15 percent US tariff for Taiwanese goods, and grants Taiwanese semiconductors and related products the most-favorable-treatment under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, the Executive Yuan said. In addition, 2,072 items — representing nearly 20 percent of Taiwan’s total exports to the US — would be exempt from additional tariffs and be subject only to
The Taiwan Space Agency (TASA) yesterday released the first images from its Formosat-8A satellite, featuring high-resolution views of Hsinchu Science Park (新竹科學園區), Tainan’s Anping District (安平), Kaohsiung’s Singda Harbor (興達港), Japan’s National Stadium in Tokyo and Barcelona airport. Formosat-8A, named the “Chi Po-lin Satellite” after the late Taiwanese documentary filmmaker Chi Po-lin (齊柏林), was launched on Nov. 29 last year. It is designed to capture images at a 1m resolution, which can be sharpened to 0.7m after processing, surpassing the capabilities of its predecessor, Formosat-5, the agency said. It is the first of TASA’s eight-satellite Formosat-8 constellation to be sent into orbit and
RSS