The Atlantic magazine has published fresh messages from a group chat among top US officials in which they discuss specific operational details of plans to bomb Yemen, spurring leading Democrats to accuse Trump administration officials of lying to Congress by claiming the messages did not contain classified information.
The initial revelations by the magazine and its editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, who was accidentally added to the chat on the messaging app Signal, have sparked a huge outcry in the US.
The Trump administration has faced withering attacks over the disastrous leak of sensitive information, including in a House intelligence committee hearing on Wednesday featuring two participants in the chat: the US director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and the CIA director, John Ratcliffe.
However, the magazine did not initially include specific details of the attack, saying it did not want to jeopardise national security. But as numerous Trump administration officials have claimed that none of the information shared was classified – despite the apparent inclusion of operational details of the US strike on Yemen’s Houthi militia, which has been attacking shipping in the Red Sea – the Atlantic said in a new article on Wednesday it was now releasing that information.
It reproduced numerous messages from the text chat between the Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth – who said on Tuesday that “nobody was texting war plans” – and top intelligence officials.
They included details of US bombings, drone launches and targeting information of the assault, including descriptions of weather conditions.
They also mention specific weapons to be used, timings for attacks and references to a “target terrorist”, presumably a Houthi militant. There is further discussion of confirmation that a target had been killed, and the use of several emojis.
“There is a clear public interest in disclosing the sort of information that Trump advisers included in nonsecure communications channels, especially because senior administration figures are attempting to downplay the significance of the messages that were shared,” the magazine said.
“If this text had been received by someone hostile to American interests – or someone merely indiscreet, and with access to social media – the Houthis would have had time to prepare for what was meant to be a surprise attack on their strongholds.
“The consequences for American pilots could have been catastrophic.”
Trump administration officials have repeatedly claimed that the messages contained no classified information. On Tuesday, after the first article was published, Gabbard and Ratcliffe said the leak contained no classified information.
The Atlantic also quoted an email response from the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt – after the magazine contacted the Trump administration to say it was considering publishing the entirety of the email chain – in which she said the chat did not include classified information but also that the White House did not want the messages released.
“As we have repeatedly stated, there was no classified information transmitted in the group chat,” Leavitt wrote. “However, as the CIA Director and National Security Advisor have both expressed today, that does not mean we encourage the release of the conversation.”
Donald Trump, when asked on Tuesday about the leak, also said: “It wasn’t classified information,” while adding that the leak was “the only glitch in two months”.
After the latest messages were published, Leavitt claimed on X that “these were NOT ‘war plans’. This entire story was another hoax written by a Trump-hater who is well-known for his sensationalist spin.”
Waltz, too, wrote on social media: “No locations. No sources & methods. NO WAR PLANS,”.
Later , at the White House press briefing Leavitt said Elon Musk’s government team was investigating how the incident occurred. “As for your original question about who’s leading, looking into the messaging thread: the national security council, the White House counsel’s office, and also, yes, Elon Musk’s team,” she told reporters.
“Elon Musk has offered to put his technical experts on this to figure out how this number was inadvertently added to the chat again to take responsibility and ensure this can never happen again,” Leavitt added.
She also said that Signal, on which senior Trump administration officials accidentally shared military plans in a group containing a journalist, was an approved app. Leavitt said it was loaded on to government phones at the Pentagon, Department of State and Central Intelligence Agency.
after newsletter promotion
But Democrats used the intelligence committee hearing on Wednesday to demand an explanation of how operational military plans are not classified information.
The Illinois Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi had an aide hold up the messages in which Hegseth shared exact details of the strikes.
“This is classified information. It’s a weapon system as well as sequence of strikes, as well as details about the operations,” Krishnamoorthi said. “This text message is clearly classified information. Secretary Hegseth has disclosed military plans as well as classified information. He needs to resign immediately.”
The committee’s top Democrat, Jim Himes, asked Gabbard why she had told senators the day before that no details of timing, targets or weapons had been shared.
“My answer yesterday was based on my recollection, or the lack thereof, on the details that were posted there,” Gabbard replied.
“What was shared today reflects the fact that I was not directly involved with that part of the Signal chat and replied at the end, reflecting the effects, the very brief effects that the national security adviser had shared.”
Ratcliffe, meanwhile, said: “I used an appropriate channel to communicate sensitive information. It was permissible to do so. I didn’t transfer any classified information.”
Last week, NPR reported that the Pentagon warned its staff specifically against the use of Signal because of its security vulnerabilities. In a Pentagon “OPSEC special bulletin” sent on 18 March, it warned that Russian hacking groups could aim to exploit the vulnerability.
Questions have also been raised about whether some of the participants in the Signal chat might have been using their personal phones.
Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, who was in Moscow at the time to discuss Ukraine with Vladimir Putin, wrote on X that while in Russia “I only had with me a secure phone provided by the government” but then explained that the reason he did not make any comments in the chat until after returning to the US was “because I had no access to my personal devices until I returned from my trip”.
The messages in the Signal chat were set to be automatically deleted in under four weeks. The Federal Records Act typically mandates that government communication records are kept for two years.
The Atlantic said it did not generally publish information about military operations if it could possibly harm US personnel but that accusations from the Trump administration that it was “lying” caused it to believe that “people should see the texts in order to reach their own conclusions”.
“There is a clear public interest in disclosing the sort of information that Trump advisers included in nonsecure communications channels, especially because senior administration figures are attempting to downplay the significance of the messages that were shared,” the magazine wrote.
