ReutersUS National Security Advisor Mike Walz took responsibility for a group chat, in which high -ranking employees planned military strikes in Yemen in the company of a journalist who was inadverted.
“I take full responsibility. I built the group,” Valtz told Fox News on Tuesday, adding that it was “disturbing”.
President Donald Trump and US Intelligence Chiefs downplayed security risks and said no classified material was shared.
But the Democrats and some Republicans called for an investigation into what several legislators have identified as a major violation.
Atlantic magazine editor -in -chief Jeffrey Goldberg announced that it was accidentally added to a signal chat by a user named Mike Walz.
In his article that violates the story He says he has seen classified military plans for US strikes in Yemen, including weapons packages, whole and time, two hours before the bombs are struck. This content is retained by the piece.
The Waltz failed to explain in his interview with Fox News how Goldberg was in chat, but – he was contrary to Trump – he said that a member of his staff was not responsible and another, unnamed contact of his, was supposed to be there in the Goldberg site.
“We have the best technical minds, looking at how this happened,” Walz continued, adding that Goldberg's number was not on his phone.
“I can tell you about 100%, I don't know this person,” Walz said, adding that he had spoken with Elon Musk about helping to find out what happened.
President Trump played the incident, calling it a “bug”, which had no impact at all.
Speaking to Newsmax, Trump said that someone who worked with Mike Wals at a lower level had a Goldberg telephone number.
US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe denied at a Senate hearing on Tuesday that any classified information was shared in the communication chain.
The chat of the signal group also included accounts identified as Vice President JD Vance and Defense Minister Pete Heget.
Mark Warner, a democratic deputy chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said: “This situation of the chat signal sheds light on a slop and a roughly incompetent national security strategy from the Trump administration.”
In his report, Goldberg said chat staff discussed Europe's potential to pay for US defense of key shipping sails.
“Whether it is now or in a few weeks, the United States will have to be reopening these transport sails,” writes the Waltz account on March 14th.
He added that his team was working with the defense and state departments “to determine how to form the related costs and to impose them on Europeans” – at the request of Trump.
At one point, the Vance account has caught that strikes will benefit Europeans because of their dependence on these transport sails, adding: “I just hate to give up Europe again.”
The user identified as a heget answered three minutes later: “VP: I fully share your aversion to European free charge. It's a pity.”
Revelation sent shock waves through Washington, provoking a case and questions why high -ranking employees discussed such sensitive issues on a potentially vulnerable civil application.
Some national security experts claim that leakage is a major operational omission and archive experts warn that it violates the laws of keeping presidential records.
The group said that by setting a chat to automatically delete messages, the group violates a law that requires White House employees to send their records to the national archive.
The National Security Agency only warned employees last month of signal vulnerabilities, according to documents received from the US partner of the BBC.
With additional reporting from Kayla Epstein, Bernd Debusman, Jr. and Brandon Drenon