Jennifer Griffin, a national security reporter for Fox News, announced that he examined present and past defense officials on Wednesday. He stated that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth disclosed “classified” information through a signal group chat that included members of President Trump’s cabinet and Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg.
“What Hegseth communicated two hours prior to the strike was a time-sensitive ‘attack order’ or ‘operational plan’ detailing the timing of the strikes and referencing F18, MQ9 Reapers, and Tomahawk missiles,” Griffin noted. Wednesday’s post x.
“This information is typically transmitted as a ‘secret, form’ message directly to the field commander via a secure channel. In essence, information is ‘classified’ and shouldn’t be disclosed through unreliable channels,” she continued.
Conversations with Griffin’s former defense sources indicated that the shared information regarding the US strike against Yemen’s Houthi forces could endanger American lives.
“Attack Order” or “Attack Sequence” jeopardizes joint forces significantly, according to one former defense officer. “The adversary can reposition targets and escalate hostile actions against the US military,” the journalist reported.
“This type of real-time operational data is more sensitive than a ‘war plan.’ This exacerbates the situation, according to two former senior US officials,” they added.
The Trump administration, including Hegseth and national security adviser Mike Waltz, has issued several statements asserting that the information is not classified.
“No names. No targets. No locations. No units. No routes. No sources. No way. Wednesday’s post x.
Sources speaking to Griffin indicated that Hegseth could potentially declassify information “retrospectively,” but stressed that the argument against labeling war plans as classified is “pure semantics,” and highlighted that signal chats could have alerted foreign adversaries about the attack if the details fell into the wrong hands.
“If you disclose who is being targeted (Houthis – the name of the text chain), it still signals warning to the enemy. When timing of the attack is revealed, all of this remains ‘classified.’
President Trump stated that White House officials would consult Hegseth to determine what information should be classified, while White House officials involved Elon Musk to investigate how Goldberg was included in the signal chat.
The Trump administration is also contending with a lawsuit filed by Group America surveillance.
The plaintiff claims that the signal chat settings were designed to erase messages after a certain timeframe, thereby breaching federal record-keeping laws pertaining to national security information.
US District Court Judge James Boasberg is overseeing the case. He is the same judge assigned to President Trump’s deportation case regarding Venezuela, which barred the Republican administration from invoking alien enemy laws.
