That was the message from President Donald Trump as he dismissed the blockbuster disclosure that his top national security officials had inadvertently disclosed war plans to a journalist on a group chat on a commercial app called Signal. “The only glitch in two months” of his second term, he told reporters in the Cabinet Room Tuesday, “and it turned out not to be a serious one.”
At least for now, he has defended his team, including national security adviser Michael Waltz, and attacked the journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the magazine The Atlantic.
But the bizarre tale isn’t over, not by a long shot.
On Wednesday morning, the Atlantic published an additional string of text messages with logistical details for the attack on Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. An hour or so later, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence, began testifying before the House Intelligence Committee.
Congressional Democrats pressed them about their denials a day earlier that war plans had been shared.
There are unanswered questions, global repercussions and lessons to be learned about Trump and his highest-ranking advisers.
What happened, exactly? Two major flubs.
Just how a journalist was added to a sensitive group chat by national security officials still isn’t entirely clear.
Waltz said on Fox News late Tuesday that he took “full responsibility” for the breach, but Trump on Newsmax cited a “junior staffer” on the National Security Council who had Goldberg’s number on his phone as the culprit.
“We made a mistake,” Waltz said. Even so, he immediately suggested, without evidence, that Goldberg might have somehow engineered it. “I didn’t see this loser in the group,” Waltz said. “Now, whether he did it deliberately or it happened (by) some other technical mean(s) is something we’re trying to figure out.”
The other serious question is why military attack plans were being discussed on a commercial app that is more vulnerable to hacking than the government’s secure communications systems.
