Donald Trump’s top team “screwed up” by including a journalist on a Signal’s group chat on which highly sensitive details about imminent US military strikes on Yemen were shared, says UK Defence Secretary John Healey.
Trump has sought to downplay the incident as a “glitch”, lashing out at the journalist mistakenly included rather than admitting to a huge security breach.
But asked on LBC Radio if the blunder was “buffoonery”, Mr Healey said: “It’s for the Americans to answer for that.
“They know they have screwed up and they are having an investigation.
“It’s a reminder for all of us in that work in this sort of field, foremost in our mind must be the security of the communications that we undertake.
“We take great care in the UK to safeguard that.”
Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, said on Tuesday that he takes “full responsibility” for setting up the group chat of top officials including US Vice President JD Vance and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth.
“It’s embarrassing, yes. We’re going to get to the bottom of it,” he said.
“I take full responsibility. I built the group. My job is to make sure everything is coordinated.”
Trump’s administration has sought to contain fallout from an explosive article on Monday by The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, revealing that he was included in the group chat on the encrypted messaging app Signal.
Mr Goldberg said Mr Hegseth posted war plans shortly before the first wave of attacks on March 15 “including information about targets, weapons the US would be deploying, and attack sequencing,” which he read from a supermarket car park on his phone.
Trump claimed no classified information was shared in the chat, bewildering Democrats and former US officials, who regard that kind of targeting information as some of the most closely-held material ahead of a US military campaign.
America’s top spies shifted the spotlight to Mr Hegseth to explain how highly sensitive details he posted in a telephone chat about the imminent US strikes on Yemen were not classified.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe initially said no classified information was shared.
But, pressed, they said Mr Hegseth would be the one to determine what defence information is classified.
“The Secretary of Defence is the original classification authority for DOD in deciding what would be classified information,” Mr Ratcliffe said.
Asked if details about the strikes on the Houthis, like attack sequencing and timing, would not have been considered classified, Gabbard said: “I defer to the Secretary of Defence and the National Security Council on that question.”
For his part, Mr Hegseth has denied sharing war plans in the group chat.
“Nobody was texting war plans, and that’s all I have to say about that,” he insisted.
Mr Goldberg responded to Mr Hegseth’s denial in an interview on CNN late on Monday by saying, “No, that’s a lie. He was texting war plans.”
US Senate Majority Leader John Thune said on Tuesday he expects the Senate Armed Services Committee will look into the issue.
“I think everybody has acknowledged, including the White House, that mistakes were made and what we want to do is make sure that something like that doesn’t happen again,” he said.
Republican Representative Don Bacon, a retired Air Force general who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, said Mr Hegseth needed to take responsibility for the breach, which he said put lives at risk.
Asked about the White House claim that no classified details were shared, Mr Bacon responded: “They ought to just be honest and own up to it.”
