WASHINGTON — The Atlantic released the entire Signal chat among Trump senior national security officials Wednesday, showing that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth provided the exact timing of warplane launches and when bombs would drop — before the men and women flying those attacks against Yemen’s Houthis this month on behalf of the United States were airborne.
The disclosure follows two intense days during which Trump's senior most Cabinet members of his intelligence and defense agencies have struggled to explain how details that current and former U.S. officials have said would have been classified wound up on an unclassified Signal chat that included Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg,
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said no classified information was posted to the Signal chat.
Hegseth has refused to say whether he posted classified information onto Signal. He is traveling in the Indo-Pacific and to date has only scoffed at questions, saying he did not reveal “war plans.” Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday that it was up to Hegseth to determine whether the information he was posting was classified or not.
What was revealed was jaw-dropping in its specificity and includes the type of information that is kept to a very close hold to protect the operational security of a military strike.
In the group chat, Hegseth posted:
“1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package)”
“1345: ‘Trigger Based’ F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME – also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s)”
“1410: More F-18s LAUNCH (2nd strike package)”
“1415: Strike Drones on Target (THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP, pending earlier ‘Trigger Based’ targets)”
“1536 F-18 2nd Strike Starts – also, first sea-based Tomahawks launched.”
“MORE TO FOLLOW (per timeline)”
“We are currently clean on OPSEC” — that is, operational security.
“Godspeed to our Warriors.”
Goldberg has said he asked the White House if it opposed publication and that the White House responded that it would prefer he did not publish.
Signal is a publicly available app that provides encrypted communications, but it can be hacked. It is not approved for carrying classified information. On March 14, one day before the strikes, the Defense Department cautioned personnel about the vulnerability of Signal, specifically that Russia was attempting to hack the app, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
One known vulnerability is that a malicious actor, with access to a person’s phone, can link his or her device to the user’s Signal and essentially monitor messages remotely in real time.
Leavitt is one of three Trump administration officials who face a lawsuit from The Associated Press on First and Fifth Amendment grounds. The AP says the three are punishing the news agency for editorial decisions they oppose. The White House says the AP is not following an executive order to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
