Signal leak scandal: Senators demand investigation after the Atlantic publishes Trump officials' group chat messages on Yemen strikes

The fallout continues over a security breach in which high-ranking members of the Trump administration accidentally shared plans about a forthcoming U.S. military attack on Yemen with the top editor of the Atlantic magazine on the Signal messaging app.

Military and intelligence experts and some members of Congress have expressed shock over the inadvertent leak, raising questions about national security protocols and the use of unsecured channels for sensitive information. The Senate Armed Services Committee is calling for an independent investigation.

President Trump and U.S. intelligence officials have tried to downplay the security risks and insist no classified material was shared.

What happened, exactly?

The Atlantic's editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, revealed in an article published on Monday that he knew about U.S. airstrikes against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen hours before they happened, because he was added to a Signal group chat where members of the Trump administration appeared to be discussing such war plans.

Goldberg said he received a Signal connection request on March 11 from someone whom he believed to be Michael Waltz, President Trump’s national security adviser. Two days later, Goldberg said he was added to a conversation with 18 members of the administration — including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard — where they talked about plans to bomb Yemen.

U.S. air and naval assets hit multiple Houthi targets in Yemen on March 15.

Goldberg said that he initially did not think the Signal group chat was real. “I could not believe that the national-security leadership of the United States would communicate on Signal about imminent war plans,” he wrote. "I have never seen a breach quite like this.

“It is not uncommon for national-security officials to communicate on Signal,” Goldberg added. “But the app is used primarily for meeting planning and other logistical matters — not for detailed and highly confidential discussions of a pending military action. And, of course, I’ve never heard of an instance in which a journalist has been invited to such a discussion."

• Related from Yahoo News: What is Signal, anyway?

What was the reaction from the White House?

White House National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said in a statement that the message thread described by Goldberg “appears to be authentic” and that security council officials were “reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.”

Trump first told reporters on Monday that he knew nothing about the incident. Then, in a phone interview with NBC News, the president said he stood by Waltz.

“Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man," Trump said. The president suggested that a member of Waltz’s staff accidentally added Goldberg to the group.

Speaking to reporters at the White House Tuesday, Trump disparaged Goldberg and the Atlantic, calling the editor a “total sleazebag” and the 167-year-old publication a “failed magazine.”

On Wednesday, White House reporters asked Trump which members of his administration bore responsibility for the chat.

“It was Mike, I guess, I don’t know,” Trump responded.

When pressed on Hegseth's role in the scandal, the president did not seem fully briefed on the fact that his defense secretary had shared sensitive information on Signal.

“How do you bring Hegseth into it? He had nothing to do with it,” Trump said.

What have people on the Signal group chat said?

In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday night, Waltz said that he takes “full responsibility" for the “embarrassing” security breach, and that he built the group chat himself.

“I take full responsibility. … I built the group,” Waltz said. “My job is to make sure everything’s coordinated.”

But Waltz also said he doesn’t know how Goldberg was added to the chat.

"I can tell you for 100% I don't know this guy," Waltz said, adding that he had spoken to Elon Musk for help in finding out what happened.

Appearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, Gabbard and Ratcliffe were grilled by Democrats over the breach, which they both sought to downplay.

During a House Intelligence Committee hearing Wednesday, Gabbard acknowledged the inclusion of a Goldberg on the Signal chat was a “mistake,” but said no classified information was shared.

Speaking to reporters in Hawaii on Monday, Hegseth flatly denied sharing any sensitive military information.

“Nobody was texting war plans,” Hegseth said. “And that’s all I have to say about that.”

He reiterated those comments on Tuesday.

“Nobody’s texting war plans,” Hegseth said. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”

During a news conference in Kingston, Jamaica, on Wednesday, Rubio said he hoped "there’ll be reforms and changes made so this never — it’s not going to happen again. It can’t."

“Obviously, someone made a mistake. Someone made a big mistake and added a journalist. Nothing against journalists, but you ain’t supposed to be on that thing,” Rubio added.

What was the Atlantic’s response to denials that war plans were shared?

In the article published Monday, Goldberg did not reveal details of the strike plans, saying the information “could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel.”

But on Wednesday, the Atlantic published the full text thread from the Signal group under the headline: “Here Are the Attack Plans That Trump’s Advisers Shared on Signal.”

“The statements by Hegseth, Gabbard, Ratcliffe, and Trump — combined with the assertions made by numerous administration officials that we are lying about the content of the Signal texts — have led us to believe that people should see the texts in order to reach their own conclusions,” Goldberg and colleague Shane Harris explained.

The messages include specific details on the timing of launches by U.S. military jets that were to strike Houthi targets.

In an interview with the BBC, Goldberg said such specifics undercut the administration's assertions that no sensitive military information was shared.

"If Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, is texting me, telling me the attack was about to be launched on Yemen — telling me what kind of aircraft are going to be used, what kind of weapons are going to be used, and when the bombs are going to fall two hours after the text is received — that seems like sensitive information, war-planning information to me," he said.

What are security experts and other officials saying?

Current and former intelligence officials and mostly Democratic lawmakers have expressed shock over the breach, wondering why members of the Trump administration would be discussing security plans on Signal in the first place.

"This Signal chat situation sheds light on a sloppy and grossly incompetent national security strategy from the Trump administration," said Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

“Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that they'd be this reckless and careless with our national security,” Ned Price, a former CIA analyst who was deputy to the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the Biden administration, told NPR.

Price said he had spoken to former national security officials and colleagues involved in military planning, adding, “It’s fair to say ... that heads are exploding.”

Some security experts have suggested that the group chat may have violated the Espionage Act for mishandling national defense information on Signal. But FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi each signaled this week that neither the FBI nor the Justice Department will investigate the matter.

What about members of Congress?

While most Republicans have avoided criticizing the administration over the breach, a few have spoken out.

“Classified information should not be transmitted on unsecured channels — and certainly not to those without security clearances, including reporters. Period,” Rep. Mike Lawler, a Republican from New York, wrote on X. “Safeguards must be put in place to ensure this never happens again.”

“The White House is in denial that this was not classified or sensitive data,” Rep. Don Bacon, a Republican from Nebraska and a former Air Force brigadier general, told reporters on Wednesday. “They should just own up to it and preserve credibility.”

Meanwhile, the Senate Armed Services Committee is calling for an independent investigation into the leak. Sen. Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican and chairman of the panel, and Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island and the committee's ranking member, sent a letter to the Pentagon’s acting inspector general Wednesday requesting a formal probe over “the use of unclassified networks to discuss sensitive and classified information, as well as the sharing of such information with those who do not have proper clearance and need to know.”

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois and a member of the committee, did not mince words in a post on X Wednesday.

"Pete Hegseth is a f***ing liar," Duckworth wrote. "This is so clearly classified info he recklessly leaked that could’ve gotten our pilots killed. He needs to resign in disgrace immediately."

What do Americans think about the Signal leak?

A YouGov poll conducted on March 25 found that 74% of Americans — including 60% of Republicans — thought the Trump administration's military leak is a very or somewhat serious problem.

The survey of 5,976 U.S. adults was conducted a day before the Atlantic published the full text of the group chat.

Are you an educator? What do you think about Trump's efforts to dismantle the Department of Education?

Yahoo News is asking teachers, administrators and other school staff around the country for their reactions to President Trump’s order and how closing the Department of Education would affect their schools and students. Let us know what you think in our form, here.