Jeffrey Goldberg Says He’s Considering Releasing More of Signal Chat — As Trump Officials Deny Under Oath That It Was Classified
The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg is weighing the release of more chat logs from the Trump team’s Houthi strike group chat he was mistakenly added to — as ranking officials denied under oath Tuesday that the information was classified, and the White House attacks his credibility.
Goldberg’s bombshell report, published Monday, detailed how he had been inadvertently swept into a Signal group chat by President Donald Trump’s national security advisor Mike Waltz over the weekend where senior Trump administration officials were planning strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen – discussing targets, weapons, and timing.
The chat users included, among others, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
The report has left Washington, D.C. reeling — as well as the White House and Trump allies disputing the journalist’s claim that he was privy to highly sensitive information. After the authenticity of the chat was confirmed, Hegseth and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt attacked Goldberg’s reputation — with the latter claiming that “no classified material” was shared in the chat.
On Tuesday, during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on the incident, Gabbard also claimed there was no classified information shared — infuriating the committee’s ranking Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), who challenged the DNI to provide the texts.
In his initial report, Goldberg stated that he had purposefully withheld some information shared in the chat that he felt was “too confidential” and could endanger lives if released.
Speaking to The Bulwark’s Tim Miller on Tuesday, Goldberg said while he remained reluctant to, he was weighing whether to now release more of the chat transcripts.
Miller pressed the journalist on the White House’s response and denial that the information was classified. Goldberg replied:
Well I mean, war plans are like I’ve detailed without including particulars or technical issues what was included. It was a timeline of coming attacks, the weapon systems used in these attacks, some very specific targeting information, who they are trying to kill! Okay? Let me just state that. Who they are trying to kill in the next two hours. To me that sounds like an attack plan. That sounds like a war plan. That sounds like this is what we’re going to do, and we haven’t done it yet. And literally, they are talking, and I agree with this kind of language – Godspeed to our men – they understand that they’re about to send Americans into harm’s way in order to achieve this national security goal.
Classification is a very interesting subject. I can’t get into it. I don’t… There’s classification. Look, it’s obviously material.
“There’s a covert CIA operative named on the thread, right?” Miller prompted.
Goldberg confirmed this was the case and continued:
Well, yes, and I withheld her name from this. They named somebody who’s an active CIA officer in this thread, which is on Signal, again, a commercial app in which I’m watching, and I withheld it. I didn’t put it in the story because she’s undercover. But I mean, the CIA director put it into the chat.
Look, by any standard of imagination, I mean, we’re talking about, again, these are technical terms, and there’s many, many different layers and complexities and I’m not a national security lawyer. But, look, I’ve been doing this for more than 30 years. I know what sensitive technical information looks like.
Miller then asked whether, given the White House’s push back and criticism of him whether he should “now demonstrate” that there was classified information in the logs and asked: “Shouldn’t you publish the text?”
Goldberg immediately rejected that as motivation to publish, he added:
My colleagues and I, the advice and the people who are giving us advice on this have some interesting conversations to have about this. But just because [the administration is] irresponsible with material doesn’t mean that I’m going to be irresponsible with this material. And you know what? I could, whatever… I mean, you’ve had long history, as I have, with dealing with them. And at moments like this, when they’re under pressure because they’ve been caught with their hand in the cookie jar or whatever, they will just literally say anything to get out of the moment, to get out of the jam – and that’s okay. I get it. I get the defensive reaction.
Pausing Goldberg then teased that in the coming days he would reveal a plan to have the information “vetted publicly” but that he wanted to ensure he could hold to his personal principles and protect certain information. He said:
But here’s the thing. My obligation, I feel, is to the idea that we take national security information seriously. And maybe in the coming days, I’ll be able to let you know, okay, I have a plan to have this material vetted publicly. But I’m not going to say that now because there’s a lot of conversations that have to happen about that.
All of my inclinations, as you can tell, including withholding the name of the CIA undercover officer, all of my inclinations are I have a pretty clear standards in my own behavior of what I consider… information that I consider to be in the public interest, even if it’s technically classified or information that’s in the public interest and information that’s not in public interest. I’m sticking to my principles here.
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