The Pentagon, Fresh Off Sending Yemen War Plans to a Journalist By Accident, Wants to Stop the Leaks

“Recent unauthorized disclosures of national security information involving sensitive communications with principals within the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) demand immediate and thorough investigation,” read an accompanying memo from DoD chief of staff Joseph Kasper. That thorough investigation was to commence immediately and yield an eventual report to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. “The report will include a complete record of unauthorized disclosures within the Department of Defense and recommendations to improve such efforts,” Kasper wrote.

Funny, that. On Monday, Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg published a bombshell of a scoop, in which he wrote that he knew hours ahead of time that the US was about to start bombing Houthi targets in Yemen on March 15 — including specific operational details. How? “The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44 a.m.”

It turns out that Trump’s National Security Advisor Mike Waltz mistakenly added Goldberg to a fun little group chat on the secure messaging app Signal. That chat, including, apparently, Hegseth, JD Vance, Marco Rubio, and other cabinet-level officials, was set up to discuss the Yemen strikes, in blatant violation of multiple federal laws and operational security measures. No one seemed to notice that Goldberg was on there too; he offered a play-by-play of the discussion and eventual rollout of the airstrikes, leaving out the details that might compromise American military security which, again, Cabinet members sent to a journalist via Signal.

That app, while more secure than some, is not an approved means of sending classified information, which may be a tidbit that could help with Kasper’s investigation. “I expect to be informed immediately,” Kasper wrote, “if this effort results in information identifying a party responsible for an unauthorized disclosure, and that such information will be referred to the appropriate criminal law enforcement entity for criminal prosecution.”