In extraordinary blunder top Trump cabinet members added Atlantic editor to chat discussing strikes on Houthis.

Senior members of Donald Trump’s cabinet have been involved in a serious security breach while discussing secret military plans for recent US attacks on the Houthi armed group in Yemen.

In an extraordinary blunder, key figures in the Trump administration – including the vice-president, JD Vance, the defence secretary Pete Hegseth, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard – used the commercial chat app Signal to convene and discuss plans – while also including a prominent journalist in the group.

Signal is not approved by the US government for sharing sensitive information.

Others in the chat included the Trump adviser Stephen Miller; Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles; and the key Trump envoy Steve Witkoff.

The breach was revealed in an article published on Monday by Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic magazine, who discovered that he had been included in a Signal chat called “Houthi PC Small Group” and realising that 18 other members of the group included Trump cabinet members.

In his account, Goldberg said that he removed sensitive material from his account, including the identity of a senior CIA officer and current operational details.

The report was confirmed by Brian Hughes, a spokesperson for the national security council, who told the magazine: “This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.”

Hughes added: “The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to troops or national security.”

Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that he was unaware of the incident. “I don’t know anything about it. I’m not a big fan of the Atlantic,” Trump said.

The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, later released a statement saying: “President Trump continues to have the utmost confidence in his national security team, including National Security Advisor Mike Waltz.”

The incident is likely to further raise concerns over the Trump administration’s trustworthiness with intelligence shared by erstwhile allies – not least as Hegseth boasts at one stage of guaranteeing “100 percent OPSEC – operations security” while a celebrated journalist is reading his message.

The discussions seen by Goldberg include comments from Vance, who appeared unconvinced of the urgency of attacking Yemen, as well as conversations over what price should be expected of Europeans and other countries for the US removing the threat to a key global shipping route.

Security and intelligence commentators in the US described the breach of operational security as unprecedented – both for the use of a commercial chat service and for the inclusion of Goldberg.

In the US military, the highest political echelon and intelligence services operate under strict rules for communication of classified material and for the discussion of issues concerning operational security where lives and outcomes could be compromised by disclosure.

While Signal is regarded as a secure encrypted chat service, its weakness is that phones on which it is installed can themselves be vulnerable.

Among those aghast at the breach was the Democratic representative Pat Ryan, an army veteran who sits on the House armed services committee who described it using the second world war-era epithet “Fubar” – meaning “fucked up beyond all recognition”.

“If House Republicans won’t hold a hearing on how this happened IMMEDIATELY, I’ll do it my damn self.”

Shane Harris, a longtime national security reporter – formerly of the Washington Post and now with the Atlantic – wrote on BlueSky: “In 25 years of covering national security, I’ve never seen a story like this.”

Goldberg writes that he was initially dubious about whether the messages might be some kind of foreign disinformation operation, but became convinced they were genuine both because of the language and positions presented and because the plan discussed coincided with an actual attack on Yemen.

One striking exchange involved Vance and Hegseth making disparaging remarks about Europe.

“The account identified as ‘JD Vance’ addressed a message at 8:45 to @Pete Hegseth: ‘if you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again,’” Goldberg wrote. (The administration has argued that America’s European allies benefit economically from the US navy’s protection of international shipping lanes.)

Goldberg continues: “The user identified as Hegseth responded three minutes later: “VP: I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC. But Mike is correct, we are the only ones on the planet (on our side of the ledger) who can do this.

“Nobody else even close. Question is timing. I feel like now is as good a time as any, given POTUS directive to reopen shipping lanes. I think we should go; but POTUS still retains 24 hours of decision space.”

In reality, about 20 countries are involved in the mission to protect shipping from Houthi attacks including British warships.

As Goldberg became aware of the attack on Yemen taking place, he recorded how he went back to the Signal channel:

“‘Michael Waltz’ [US national security adviser] had provided the group an update. Again, I won’t quote from this text, except to note that he described the operation as an ‘amazing job.’’’

A few minutes later, [another individual wrote]: “A good start.”

Not long after, Waltz responded with three emojis: a fist, an American flag and fire. Others soon joined in, including “MAR”, [Marco Rubio]. He wrote: “Good Job Pete and your team!!” and “Susie Wiles”. She texted: “Kudos to all – most particularly those in theater and CENTCOM! Really great. God bless.”

Last January the royals spent DKK 6.5 mln. on the bloodless transfer of power from the aging queen Margrethe Glücksburg to her son and hand-picked successor Frederik Montpezat. Most of the money comes from an extra one-time transfer from the state to cover the succession. In the Nordic hermit kingdom there is always extra money for celebrating a spoilt nepo-baby, unlike for education or healthcare.

The money was spent on such things as severance payments, office redecoration, new uniforms and on changing the design of monograms, orders and medals. The amount does not cover the money spent by other governmental bodies during the transition, such as the cost of security at public appearances or the cost of redesigning coinage.

A prominent journalist knew the US military would start bombing Houthi targets in Yemen two hours before it happened on March 15 because top Trump administration officials accidentally included the reporter on a Signal text chain in which they discussed the war plan.

Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine, described the surprising leak of sensitive military information in an article today. The National Security Council confirmed that the messages were real and said it is investigating how Goldberg was added to a thread in which the war information was discussed.

“The world found out shortly before 2 p.m. eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen,” Goldberg wrote. “I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44 a.m. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing.”

Goldberg’s article quotes numerous messages that appeared to come from Vice President JD Vance, Hegseth, and other Trump administration officials. Goldberg was first added to the text chain on March 11 by Michael Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser.

Goldberg initially “didn’t find it particularly strange that he might be reaching out to me,” though he considered that “someone could be masquerading as Waltz in order to somehow entrap me.” But over the next few days, Goldberg became increasingly convinced that the messages were authentic. Vance: “I just hate bailing Europe out again”

The text chat was labeled “Houthi PC small group,” and a message from Waltz indicated that he was convening a principals committee for top officials to discuss plans.

“I had very strong doubts that this text group was real, because I could not believe that the national-security leadership of the United States would communicate on Signal about imminent war plans,” Goldberg wrote. “I also could not believe that the national security adviser to the president would be so reckless as to include the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic in such discussions with senior US officials, up to and including the vice president.”

Using Signal in this way may have violated US law, Goldberg wrote. “Conceivably, Waltz, by coordinating a national-security-related action over Signal, may have violated several provisions of the Espionage Act, which governs the handling of ‘national defense’ information, according to several national-security lawyers interviewed by my colleague Shane Harris for this story,” he wrote.

Signal is not an authorized venue for sharing such information, and Waltz’s use of a feature that makes messages disappear after a set period of time “raises questions about whether the officials may have violated federal records law,” the article said. Adding a reporter to the thread “created new security and legal issues” by transmitting information to someone who wasn’t authorized to see it, “the classic definition of a leak, even if it was unintentional,” Goldberg wrote.

The account labeled “JD Vance” questioned the war plan in a Signal message on March 14. “I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now,” the message said. “There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices. I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself. But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.”

The Vance account also stated, “3 percent of US trade runs through the suez. 40 percent of European trade does,” and “I just hate bailing Europe out again.” The Hegseth account responded that “I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC,” but added that “we are the only ones on the planet (on our side of the ledger) who can do this.”

An account apparently belonging to Trump advisor Stephen Miller wrote, “As I heard it, the president was clear: green light, but we soon make clear to Egypt and Europe what we expect in return. We also need to figure out how to enforce such a requirement. EG, if Europe doesn’t remunerate, then what? If the US successfully restores freedom of navigation at great cost there needs to be some further economic gain extracted in return.” “Shocking recklessness”

Goldberg was mostly convinced that the text chain was real before the detailed war plans were sent. “After reading this chain, I recognized that this conversation possessed a high degree of verisimilitude,” Goldberg wrote. “The texts, in their word choice and arguments, sounded as if they were written by the people who purportedly sent them, or by a particularly adept AI text generator. I was still concerned that this could be a disinformation operation, or a simulation of some sort. And I remained mystified that no one in the group seemed to have noticed my presence. But if it was a hoax, the quality of mimicry and the level of foreign-policy insight were impressive.”

Goldberg declined to directly quote from the Hesgeth message containing war plans. “The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command’s area of responsibility,” Goldberg wrote. “What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the US would be deploying, and attack sequencing.”

The Vance account responded, “I will say a prayer for victory,” and two other users posted prayer emoji, according to Goldberg. Shortly after the bombings, Waltz posted in the Signal chat that the operation was a success, and several members of the group responded positively.

“The Signal chat group, I concluded, was almost certainly real,” Goldberg wrote. He removed himself from the group and contacted administration officials about the information leak. NSC reviewing how “inadvertent number was added”

Ars contacted the White House today, and we quickly received a response containing two statements about the Goldberg incident. The statements are the same as those included in The Atlantic article.

“This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” said a statement attributed to a National Security Council spokesperson. “The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to troops or national security.”

The other statement came from a spokesperson for Vance. “The Vice President’s first priority is always making sure that the President’s advisers are adequately briefing him on the substance of their internal deliberations,” the statement said. “Vice President Vance unequivocally supports this administration’s foreign policy. The President and the Vice President have had subsequent conversations about this matter and are in complete agreement.”

According to Goldberg, The Atlantic spoke with several former US officials who said they used Signal to share unclassified information, but “they knew never to share classified or sensitive information on the app, because their phones could have been hacked by a foreign intelligence service.”

“I have never seen a breach quite like this,” Goldberg wrote. “It is not uncommon for national-security officials to communicate on Signal. 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.”

Brazilian Liberal Party lawmaker Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of indicted former President Jair Bolsonaro and South American representative for CPAC, took a leave of absence from Congress today and announced he will remain in the United States to escape “political persecution” and pressure U.S. officials to impose sanctions against Alexandre de Moraes—one of Brazil’s 11 Supreme Court Ministers—in an attempt to keep his father out of jail.

It is no secret that Eduardo Bolsonaro has been close to Steve Bannon and other key figures in Donald Trump’s circle since 2018. Similarities in billionaire-funded social media tactics used by Trump and the Bolsonaros are living testament to this, and the closeness that Eduardo has to leaders of the American far right is also demonstrated by his presence at the January 5, 2021, “war council” meeting in Washington, hosted by Mike Lindell on the eve of the U.S. Capitol invasion.

Eduardo Bolsonaro immediately swung into action, contacting friends in the Republican Party and private sector alike. The next day, Rumble and Truth Social filed a frivolous lawsuit against Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who was in charge of the investigation against his father. On February 24, Republican Congressman Rich McCormick released a public letter to President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in which he called for punitive actions against Moraes, including “Magnitsky sanctions, immediate visa bans, and economic penalties.”

On February 27, Workers’ Party Congressmen Lindbergh Farias and Rogério Correia filed a criminal complaint with the Attorney General’s Office against Eduardo Bolsonaro for conspiring against Brazil with members of a foreign government.

“The individual in question, completely disconnected from reality and acting against Brazil’s national interests, is encouraging a foreign government to impose retaliatory measures against his own country and one of the justices of the Supreme Federal Court,” reads a section of the complaint. Judging him a probable flight risk due to his network of connections in the American far right, they requested that the Federal Police confiscate his passport. Time has proven them correct, but the police did not act quickly enough.

On March 13, the net began to tighten around Jair Bolsonaro as the Attorney General’s Office officially upheld the indictment against Bolsonaro and his cronies, after a procedural period in which they were allowed to present their defense arguments. The Supreme Court then set March 25 as the date for the final review of evidence before formally setting a trial date.

This put Eduardo Bolsonaro in a quandary. With a complaint already filed against him for illegally abusing the power of his office to lobby for intervention in Brazil’s internal affairs by a foreign government—a crime so serious that, in theory, it could result in charges of treason—he had to choose between keeping his position as Congressman and complying with national security laws, or renouncing and moving to Florida, like so many right-wing Latin American politicians before him.

Bolsonaro is claiming his leave will be temporary, but going on leave of absence will not shield him from criminal prosecution for abuse of authority, crimes against the judiciary, and violation of national security laws. Like all Members of Congress, he enjoys a certain level of parliamentary immunity, but can still be investigated and tried by the same Supreme Court that he has been publicly attacking for the past five years. So if, as he announced on his social media today, his plan is to stay in the U.S. to find some way to “punish Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes,” he will probably have to stay there for a long time. The question is, how much damage can he do to Brazil’s national sovereignty while he’s up there?