Trump shifts blame for Signalgate texts onto ‘lower level’ mystery employee

Donald Trump has shifted the blame for a major security blunder in which details of U.S. military operations in Yemen were leaked to a journalist on a secret group chat to an unidentified, “lower level” White House employee that worked for his national security advisor Michael Waltz.

Trump offered the new theory in an interview on Newsmax Tuesday evening on how Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, ended up on the Signal group chat in which the top-secret plans were discussed.

“What it was, we believe, is somebody that was on the line with permission, somebody that was with Mike Waltz, worked for Mike Waltz at a lower level, had, I guess, Goldberg’s number or called through the app, and somehow this guy ended up on the call,” the president said.

Trump’s explanation followed an earlier TV appearance by Waltz, who took “full responsibility” for allowing Goldberg to gain access to the discussions.

“I take full responsibility. I built the group,” he told Fox News’s Ingraham Angle in an interview that aired shortly before Trump’s.

open image in gallery

“It’s embarrassing. We’re going to get to the bottom of it,” Waltz said.

Despite fervent denials by the Trump administration throughout Tuesday that any information had been leaked, The Atlantic backed its reporting, and its insistence that officials including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance discussed detailed aspects of the strikes, including targets and weapons details.

Such discussions would break with official protocol typically required when discussing such highly sensitive information.

Retired U.S. Army General Barry McCaffery said in a statement on social media Monday that sharing sensitive military information on Signal, a hackable messaging encryption app available to the public, would expose the information to foreign intelligence and would risk lives.

He called pending U.S. military operations among the “most sensitive” intelligence, adding: “In this case we’re talking about the lives of Air Force and Navy fliers.”

Just days after the Signal chat, the Pentagon issued a warning that Russian hackers had cracked the app.

The Pentagon advisory warned that officials should stop using the app, even for sending unclassified information, citing a “vulnerability.”

“A vulnerability has been identified in the Signal messenger application,” warned the advisory, sent out on March 18, NPR reported. The Yemen bombings occurred March 15.

The advisory stated that “Russian professional hacking groups are employing the ‘linked devices’ feature to spy on encrypted conversations.” It noted that Google had also identified Russian hackers who are targeting “Signal Messenger to spy on persons of interest.”

Trump in his Newsmax interview echoed the denials of his administration that there was no classified information shared in the group chat, though he did not address the sensitivity of the information.

“No it wasn’t classified, as I understand it. There was no classified information,” he said.

open image in gallery

“There was no problem, and the attack was a tremendous success. So only by what I’ve been told — I wasn’t involved in it — but I was told by and the other people weren’t involved at all. But I feel very comfortable,” the president emphasized.

Trump also attacked The Atlantic in the Newsmax interview.

“It’s a terrible magazine. They made up all sorts of stories about me with standing over the grave of soldiers,” he said, referring to a prior piece – also written by Goldberg, and published in 2020 – which accused the president of referring to dead military members as “suckers and losers.”

Goldberg’s a “loser. His magazine’s a big loser,” he said.

In a statement shared with NBC News, a spokesperson for The Atlantic said: “Attempts to disparage and discredit The Atlantic, our editor, and our reporting follow an obvious playbook by elected officials and others in power who are hostile to journalists and the First Amendment rights of all Americans.”

“Our journalists are continuing to fearlessly and independently report the truth in the public interest,” the statement added.