Secretary of State Marco Rubio flatly admitted Wednesday that “someone made a big mistake” when a journalist was added to the encrypted Signal chat about bomb plans in Yemen earlier this month.
His remarks were in sharp contrast to other Trump administration officials who have downplayed the seriousness of the situation and any culpability as they testify before Congress.
They have insisted that none of the details of the planned bomb attacks, which occurred just hours later that same day March 15, rose to the level of classified information, implying sharing the information ahead of the attacks wasn’t a major security risk.
President Donald Trump himself has insisted it was “no big thing.”
The entire transcript of the communications was printed by The Atlantic Wednesday after editor Jeffrey Goldberg was surprised to find himself invited to participate in the chat, which he first reported Monday.
Rubio, who was on the chat, told reporters during a visit to Kingston, Jamaica Wednesday: “Obviously, someone made a mistake, someone made a big mistake and added a journalist” to the discussion that included targets and bomb times.
He added: “Nothing against journalists, but you ain’t supposed to be on that thing.”
But he also held to the Trump administration line that the leaked conversation wasn’t dangerous, even though attack specifics were included.
“The Pentagon has made it clear that nothing on there would have endangered the lives or the mission,” Rubio said. “There were no war plans on there.”
Some 53 people, including children, were killed in the strikes that day.
Retired U.S. Army General Barry McCaffery said in a statement on social media Monday that sharing sensitive military information on Signal, a hackable messaging encryption app available to the public, would expose the information to foreign intelligence and would risk lives.
He called pending U.S. military operations among the “most sensitive” intelligence, adding: “In this case, we’re talking about the lives of Air Force and Navy fliers” involved in the strikes, he emphasized.
McCaffery insisted that a military official in a similar situationwould face a court martial if an unsecured app was used to communicate such information.
Just days after the Signal chat, the Pentagon issued a warning that Russian hackers had cracked the app, and that no one should use Signal to communicate important information.
The advisory statedthat "Russian professional hacking groups are employing the 'linked devices' feature to spy on encrypted conversations." It also noted that Google has also identified Russian hackers who are targeting "Signal Messenger to spy on persons of interest."
