A high-ranking Trump official accidentally pulled a journalist into a private chat where they revealed a plan to attack Yemen. Now people are wondering if they broke federal law.
This happened when Mike Walsh, a national security adviser, discussed a possible attack on Yemen with other high-ranking officials. They used the messaging app Signal, which is known for being secure. But somehow, the journalist David Goldberg from The Atlantic was added to the chat.
In the chat, officials talked about when to attack Yemen. They were discussing this because Yemen is a threat to international shipping. After the attack, they even congratulated each other on a job well done.
The defense minister, Pete Hegseth, denied that they ever talked about war plans in the chat. But the Trump government had already said that the messages seemed real. Hegseth also criticized the journalist, calling him “dishonest” and “untrustworthy”.
The app they used, Signal, is very secure and only the people in the chat can read the messages. But using it to discuss military plans is a big mistake. It could put American soldiers’ lives in danger and hurt national security.
It’s not clear if anyone will get in trouble for this mistake. Trump doesn’t seem to be planning to fire anyone. When asked about it, he said he didn’t know anything and that he doesn’t like The Atlantic.
National security officials are very disappointed. They say that talking about important things on an unprotected platform is risky and could let foreign hackers get the information. If someone else did this, they would probably get fired and might even get in legal trouble.
Using Signal to share secret information and accidentally adding a journalist to the chat could be a violation of federal law. This includes the Espionage Act, which says that mishandling national defense information is a crime.
Former Justice Department officials say that usually, a mistake like this would lead to an FBI investigation. But in this case, it’s unlikely because the high-ranking officials in the chat would have to ask for the investigation themselves.
Source: CNN
