(Adnkronos) – “It’s a lie, he posted war plans on the chat”. This is how Jeffrey Goldberg replied to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth who denied the scoop of the director of The Atlantic who revealed that he had been mistakenly included in a chat of the Trump administration’s security team in which the plans of the US attack on the Houthis on March 15 were published in advance.
“No one was messaging war plans and that’s all I have to say,” the Pentagon chief told reporters asking for comment on the sensational revelation, which suggests that Trump’s ministers were discussing top-secret plans in a chat on Signal, unclassified in which a journalist had also been included. Statements that Goldberg – who on The Atlantic yesterday gave a detailed account of how he was inserted by National Security Advisor Michael Waltz into the chat and the exchanges, particularly the dismissive ones towards European allies among the ministers – in turn denied.
“This is a lie, he posted war plans – he said interviewed last night by CNN – he was posting attack plans, when the targets would be hit, how, who would be hit and when the next round of attacks would be.”
Hegseth also harshly and personally attacked Goldberg calling him a “disgraced journalist, greatly discredited, who has built a career by continuing to spread fake news”. White House spokesman Brian Hughes, however, had to confirm the existence of the chat on Signal, an encrypted app that is downloaded to phones that are vulnerable to penetration by foreign services.
In the article, Goldberg recounts that when he received the invitation to join the chat on March 11 from Waltz, he thought it was a joke but accepted it anyway. Two days later, however, he is inserted by the National Security Advisor into a group “Houthi Pc small group”, with Pc standing for ‘principal committee’, that is, all the main members of the security team, including the Secretary of Defense, State, Treasury, CIA director. That within a few minutes they enter the chat, along with Vice President JD Vance and Tulsi Gabbard, head of National Intelligence.
Then at 11:44 a.m. on March 15, Hegseth posted “operational details of the impending raids in Yemen” in the chat, Goldberg writes, stressing that “the information contained could be read by enemies of the United States, potentially used to harm U.S. military and intelligence personnel.” In the CNN interview, the journalist recounted how at that point he finally realized that “the chat was real, that Hegseth had actually sent the group the information about the attacks and their sequence.”
Goldeberg does not publish the content of the attack plans in his article, but he does publish some illuminating exchanges about the attitude of the top echelons of this U.S. administration toward European allies. In particular, Vance calls the operation in Yemen “a mistake” because it would end up helping Europe more than the United States, with barely 3% of U.S. trade passing through the Suez Canal compared to 40% of European trade.
“There is a real risk that people will not understand why it is necessary, I am not sure that the president is aware of how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe,” the vice president continues, but then adds: “If you think we need to do it, let’s go, it’s just that I hate saving Europe again.”
A joke to which the Pentagon chief responds in even more dismissive tones toward historical allies: “I fully share your disgust with the European freeloaders, it’s pathetic,” he says, adding, however, that he believes the raids should proceed.
