National security: Report on group chat from Trump-Ministers hits waves

The opposition in the US parliament wants to have a suspected governmental communication span examined through which a journalist apparently has followed a group chat for a planned military attack in Yemen. The minority leader of the Democrats in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, spoke of “amateurous behavior” on platform X and called for a comprehensive processing. The newspaper “The Hill” and the broadcaster ABC cited him with the words that it was “one of the most incredible injuries” military secrets that had ever been accommodated.

When it comes to group entertainment, leading government officials about the Messenger app signal should have been the – there is still an impending – attack on the Huthi militia in Yemen. The editor-in-chief of the renowned US magazine “The Atlantic”, Jeffrey Goldberg, was accidentally included in the group and later made the process public. A spokesman for the National Security Council, Brian Hughes, confirmed that the chat course was most likely authentic. He announced an internal exam.

Democratic politicians react horrified

The democratic senator and military expert Jack Reed explained “if this story is true, she represents one of the most outrageous failures in terms of operational security and common sense that I have ever seen”. Military operations would have to be handled with extreme discretion and approved, safe communication channels, because it is about the life of Americans. “The negligence that President Trump’s cabinet shows is amazing and dangerous. I will immediately demand answers from the government.”

The former democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton posted the “Atlantic” article on X and wrote: “That should be a joke.” The then presidential candidate – and today’s President – Donald Trump had repeatedly accused her in the 2016 election campaign that he had sent emails about a private account and thus disregarded security rules.

Usually there are strict regulations on how the US government has to deal with confidential and strictly secret information that affects national security. This applies all the more to concrete plans for military missions abroad. According to “Atlantic”, the Signal app is generally not permitted by the US government for the exchange of confidential information.

Military operational plans and flame emojis

In his article, Goldberg describes the exchange between those involved in the chat – with exact times and original quotes. Accordingly, both military tactics and political communication around the planned blow against the Huthi militia in Yemen were discussed. Goldberg, Defense Minister Pete Hegseth, Foreign Minister Marco Rubio as well as other cabinet members and high -ranking government officials, performed as group members.

In Goldberg’s article, the sometimes informal tone of the chat protagonists in the military context is also noticeable. The journalist wrote, Trump’s national security advisor Michael Waltz, who is said to have included him in the group, used Emojis to signal approval and fighting spirit: a concentrated fist, a US flag and a flame symbol.

Particularly explosive: Two hours before the start of the attacks on March 15, Hegseth himself is said to have given detailed information on targets, weapon systems and the operation of the operation. Shortly afterwards, air strikes against positions of the Huthi militia in Yemen actually began, which the United States had recently classified as a foreign terrorist organization. At the latest at this point, Goldberg, who initially wanted to be very skeptical, came to the conclusion that the group chat was not an elaborately staged fake.

“Nobody texted war plans”

Hegseth vehemently denied the “Atlantic” report later. “Nobody texted war plans,” he replied at the airport in Hawaii when asked about his landing. The former TV presenter of the right-wing conservative transmitter Fox News disparaged Goldberg as “fraudulent and discredited so-called journalists”, who had turned into a profession to drive a campaign against the government and to spread false reports again and again.

Hegseth’s abuse contradicted the statements of the security council spokesman Hughes, who had most likely described the chat course. Trump himself had previously explained that he hadn’t heard of the group chat, but was “not a big fan” of the “Atlantic” magazine anyway. He also shared a tweet of his confidante Elon Musk by blaspheming the Tech billionaire, which is regularly reporting against critically reporting, that the best place to hide a body was the page two of the “Atlantic” – because no one ever looks there.