Yemen: White House admits it accidentally sent potentially classified Houthi strike plan to journalist

The White House confirmed on Monday that a US journalist was accidentally included in a group chat between Trump administration officials that discussed potentially classified details about strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.

The Atlantic magazine's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, announced he was given advance notice of the US strikes on the Houthis in Yemen on 15 March in a personal essay for the magazine.

In a response to Goldberg, National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said, "The message thread that was reported appears to be authentic, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.”

Speaking about the security breach, Goldberg said he was first notified of the upcoming strikes on a group chat on the encrypted messaging platform Signal, which included US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance.

He said, “I knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. Pete Hegseth had texted me the war plan at 11:44 am. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing.”

Goldberg added that Hegseth’s post contained “operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the US would be deploying, and attack sequencing”.

Goldberg said he had initially received a connection request on Signal from national security advisor Michael Waltz on 11 March and was immediately concerned someone was masquerading as Waltz and that he was being entrapped before accepting the request.

Two days later, he received a notice that he was being added to a Signal chat group called the “Houthi PC small group.”

Goldberg said that PC stands for “principals committee” and generally refers to a group of the most senior national security officials, including the secretaries of defence, state, and the treasury, as well as the director of the CIA.

Senior members of the administration represented on the group chat included Secretary of State Marco Rubio; Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth; National Intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard; White House chief of staff Susie Wiles; homeland security advisor Stephen Miller; Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent; US special envoy Steve Witkoff; as well as a member of the CIA and National Security Council. In all, 18 people were listed as members of the group.

He said he had “never been invited to a White House principals-committee meeting, and that, in my many years of reporting on national-security matters, I had never heard of one being convened over a commercial messaging app”.

On 14 March, Goldberg said a person called JD Vance expressed doubts about carrying out the strikes, saying, “I think we are making a mistake. 3 percent of US trade runs through the Suez. 40 percent of European trade does. There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary. The strongest reason to do this is, as POTUS said, to send a message.”

He added that he hated "bailing Europe out again”, referring to the notion that Europe benefits economically from US protection of shipping lanes.

A user identified as Hegseth agreed with him, saying, “VP: I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC.”

Goldberg added that someone identified as SM, who he believed to be Stephen Miller, said, “we soon make clear to Egypt and Europe what we expect in return. We also need to figure out how to enforce such a requirement. EG, if Europe doesn’t remunerate, then what? If the US successfully restores freedom of navigation at great cost there needs to be some further economic gain extracted in return”.

Laws violated?

The campaign of air strikes targeting Houthi rebels, which killed at least 53 people immediately after they began on 15 March, started after the Houthis threatened to begin targeting “Israeli” ships again over Israel currently blocking aid entering the Gaza Strip.

The Houthis started targeting vessels in November 2023, in what they say is in solidarity with Gaza, and have impacted the vital route. It carries around 12 percent of world shipping traffic, forcing some companies into a costly detour around the tip of southern Africa.

The Biden administration initially targeted the Houthis after their campaign. But Trump has vowed to use lethal force on the Houthis, and US strikes have taken place over the past 10 days.

AFP reported that Trump told journalists, "I don't know anything about it. You're telling me about it for the first time," also saying that "the attack was very effective" in any case.

Goldberg said that communications about highly confidential pending military action over Signal “may have violated several provisions of the Espionage Act”.

US Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer on Monday slammed the leaking of the Pentagon war plan to the journalist and called for a “full investigation”.

“This is one of the most stunning breaches of military intelligence I have read about in a very, very long time,” Schumer said, adding, “This debacle requires a full investigation into how this happened.”