The Atlantic has released the text messages that include attack plans on Houthi rebels in Yemen, messages that its editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg received after being inadvertently added to a group text chain on Signal that included many of the highest-ranking officials in the Trump administration.
The story stunned the political and media establishment, sparking jealousy from other journalists, and shock from national security experts that people like the National Security Adviser and Secretary of Defense would play so loose with operational security.
Top officials — including President Trump — have said that no classified information was shared in the chats, though The Atlantic says that it opted to withhold the name of CIA director John Ratcliffe’s chief of staff at the agency’s request. The officials also said that no war plans were shared in the group chat.
“These statements presented us with a dilemma. In The Atlantic’s initial story about the Signal chat—the ‘Houthi PC small group,’ as it was named by Waltz—we withheld specific information related to weapons and to the timing of attacks that we found in certain texts,” Goldberg and staff writer Shane Harris write in Wednesday’s story. “As a general rule, we do not publish information about military operations if that information could possibly jeopardize the lives of U.S. personnel. That is why we chose to characterize the nature of the information being shared, not specific details about the attacks.”
“The statements by Hegseth, Gabbard, Ratcliffe, and Trump—combined with the assertions made by numerous administration officials that we are lying about the content of the Signal texts—have led us to believe that people should see the texts in order to reach their own conclusions,” they added. “There is a clear public interest in disclosing the sort of information that Trump advisers included in nonsecure communications channels, especially because senior administration figures are attempting to downplay the significance of the messages that were shared.”
You can see The Atlantic’s new story here.
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