Despite denying that classified information was ever shared on a messaging app used by top U.S. intelligence officers, the White House said it opposed The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg's question about whether sharing screenshots from the conversation after he was accidentally included in a group chat to discuss military attacks in Yemen. Goldberg went ahead and published them anyway.
The Signal scandal is ongoing. On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to a request for comment from Goldberg, doubling down that the messages shared on Signal were not classified, yet they should not have been made public either.
"As we repeatedly stated, there was no classified information transmitted in the group chat. However, as the CIA Director and National Security Advisor have both expressed today, that does not mean we encourage the release of the conversation," Leavitt wrote. "This was intended to be an [sic] internal and private deliberation amongst high-level senior staff and sensitive information was discussed. So for those reasons [sic]— yes, we object to the release."
Leavitt's statement, however, did not address which elements of the texts the White House considered sensitive, or how, more than a week after the initial air strikes, their publication could have bearing on national security.
Other officials in the administration have shared similar messages to Leavitt, asserting there was no wrongdoing in the app, which is not cleared by the federal government as a proper channel of communication to share classified information. For instance, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who was in the text chain, testified before Congress Tuesday, saying the online conversation was "completely appropriate."
Goldberg was accidentally added to the chat and was able to observe the messages, which he said he initially thought was a masquerade. He left the group after he realized it "was almost certainly real" after the strikes forecast in the chat took place.
Following the administration's messaging, The Atlantic released more of the group chat among the senior officials, showing the content of the discussion of U.S. military plans to strike Houthi targets in Yemen. The publication had initially withheld details of the strike plans, saying the information was sensitive.
The new messages, which include screenshots of the full chat on the messaging app, make clear that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth included specific details of the timing of the launches from aircraft carriers of the U.S. military jets that were to strike Houthi targets.
Launch times are typically closely guarded to ensure that the targets cannot move into hiding or mount a counterattack at the very moment planes are taking off, when they are potentially vulnerable, The New York Times explains.
Ratcliffe told House Intelligence Committee members on Wednesday that the newly released portions of the chat show that he did not share classified information there.
"My answers haven't changed," he said. "I used an appropriate channel to communicate sensitive information. It was permissible to do so. I didn't transfer any classified information."
© 2025 Latin Times. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
