Spilling America’s security secrets is fine, as long as you're in the Trump cabinet

US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz wants to get to the bottom of how a journalist ended up in a group chat discussing strikes against the Houthis. Reuters

In 2016, Donald Trump and the Republican establishment lost their collective mind when it emerged that Hillary Clinton, who was running for president on the Democratic ticket, had used a private server to store classified emails. For months, the story was one of the only topics mainstream US media would cover. Mr Trump, who went on to defeat his rival in that year's election, would talk incessantly about the emails and even encouraged supporters at his rallies to chant: “Lock her up.”

Here we are, nearly a decade later, and several of the same Republicans who were supposedly outraged by Ms Clinton's mishandling of classified information now find themselves in the middle of a scandal that is arguably just as damaging.

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard were among those invited to a group conversation started on Signal by National Security Adviser Mike Waltz. The topic of the “Houthi PC small group” chat was the coming military strikes against the Iran-backed rebels in Yemen.

Using a commercial messaging app on a mobile phone to discuss war plans, instead of communicating through secure channels, is shockingly lax and raises several security concerns. But the real problem was that Mr Waltz had also invited the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine, Jeffrey Goldberg, into the chat. Goldberg was initially sceptical the group was real, as he watched America's senior officials discuss imminent military strikes against the Houthis.

The saga appears to be a grievous case of sloppy operational security

The saga appears to be a grievous case of sloppy operational security, but any negative consequences have been limited because Goldberg declined to publish some of the most sensitive information, including the name of a CIA official. Instead of owning up to the mistake, the Trump administration, which views journalists as the “enemy of the people”, has predictably opted to attack the messenger.

“There's a lot of journalists in this city who have made big names for themselves, making up lies about this President,” Mr Waltz said. “This one in particular I've never met, don't know, never communicated with, and we are looking into and reviewing how the heck he got into this room.”

That shouldn't take too long to figure out, given it was Mr Waltz who invited the journalist into the chat, according to Goldberg. The White House has admitted that the chat was real, but claims it highlights a “deep and thoughtful co-ordination between senior officials”.

Mr Hegseth, a former Fox News host, shared war plans on the chat, Goldberg said. The editor did not publish these details, saying the information could be used to harm American military and intelligence personnel. Instead of acknowledging this deference to US intelligence tradecraft, Mr Hegseth also attacked Goldberg.

“You're talking about a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who's made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again,” the head of the Pentagon said, just three days after his chief of staff issued a memo saying that defence personnel could face polygraph tests if they leak information.

Yet while at Fox in 2016, Mr Hegseth excoriated Ms Clinton for her handling of classified emails.

“The people we rely on to do dangerous and difficult things for us rely on one thing from us: that we will not reveal their identity, that we will not be reckless with the dangerous thing they are doing for us. That’s the national security implications of a private server that’s unsecured,” he said at the time.

As recounted by Goldberg, the Signal conversation also gives an eye-opening insight into the Trump administration's contempt for its supposed allies, including Europe and Egypt. At one point in the chat, “SM” – presumably Stephen Miller, Mr Trump's deputy chief of staff for policy – says that the US needs to make sure Europe and Egypt know what it wants “in return” for the strike against the Houthis. Mr Hegseth is even more direct.

“I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It's pathetic,” Mr Hegseth told his Eurosceptic colleague Mr Vance.

Screengrab published by Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg.

Other chat participants included Mr Rubio, who in 2016 asserted that: “Nobody is above the law – not even Hillary Clinton, even though she thinks she is." John Ratcliffe, who is now CIA director, said in 2019 that: “Mishandling classified information is still a violation of the Espionage Act.”

As for Mr Trump, he has greeted the scandal with a shrug.

“It's just something that can happen. It can happen,” he said on Tuesday. “There is no perfect technology. The really good ones are very cumbersome, very hard to access.”

Mr Trump and several of his officials have also claimed that no classified information was shared on the chat. A preposterous assertion. If the exact timings and methods of an imminent military strike are not classified, I don't know what is.

“Classified information should never be discussed over an unclassified system,” Democratic Senator Mark Warner said at a hearing on Tuesday. “It's also mind-boggling that all these senior folks were on this line and nobody checked security hygiene 101, like the names on the group chat.”

In more normal times, one might expect a head or two to roll over an incident like this. But Mr Trump has no political opposition in Congress, has a fully pliant Republican Party and is betting his supporters won't care. Plus, he has long had his own issues with how he personally handles sensitive information – in 2023, he was accused of storing classified documents at his home in Mar-a-Lago, including in the shower rooms and toilets.

For now, at least, the message is clear: mishandling sensitive information is fine, as long as the Trump administration is doing it.