There are few US presidential actions more sensitive, more filled with danger than when and where to use the US military force.
If such information has been obtained from US opponents in advance, it can expose life – and to national foreign policy goals – at risk.
Fortunately for the Trump administration, a group chat with information about an upcoming strike in the United States in Yemen among senior national security officials of the encrypted chat signal did not fall into the wrong hands.
Unfortunately, the Trump administration, the communication thread was observed by influential political journalist Jeffrey Goldberg.
The editor -in -chief of Atlantic magazine, in an article published on Monday on the website of his publication, says it seems to have been added inadvertently to the Chat by the White House National Security Advisor Michael Walz.
The group members appear to include Vice President JD Vance, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, White House Chief Susie Wills and Defense Minister Pete Heget, among others.
A spokesman for the National Security Council told the BBC that the text message “seems to be authentic”.
Goldberg says the group is discussing the policy and discussed the operational details of the upcoming US warlords, which provided a rare look near real-time for the internal work of the Senior Trump National Security Team.
“Amazing work,” writes the Group Waltz, just minutes after the US strikes on Huti's goals in Yemen took place on Saturday, March 15th.
He followed Emoji on the Flag of the United States, Fist and Fire. Other senior officials joined the group congratulations.
However, these celebrations in the White House may be short -lived after the revelations on Monday.
The fact that an external person can inadvertently be added to sensitive conversations of national defense is a stunning failure of the Trump administration.
And that these conversations are held outside the safe government channels intended for such sensitive communications, they may violate the spying law, which sets rules for the processing of classified information.
“This administration plays quickly and loosened with our country's most classified information and makes all Americans less safe,” Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking of Democrats in the Senate Intelligence Committee published on X.
Democratic Congressman Chris Deluzio said in a press statement that the House of Armed Services Committee he sits should conduct a full investigation and hearing on the matter as soon as possible.
“This is an outrageous violation of national security and the heads have to roll,” he said.
Criticism was also not limited to Democrats.
Don Bacon, a Republican Nebraska Congressman, told the political website Axios that the administration's action was “non -compliant”.
“None of this should be sent to uncertain systems,” he told Waltz messages. “Russia and China are certainly watching its unclassified phone.”
With the Republicans who control both the House of Representatives and the Senate, Trump's own party will have to start any kind of official investigation into the congress on the subject.
The Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson seems to be belittling as he told reporters that the White House had admitted his mistake.
“They will tighten and make sure that this is not repeated,” he said. “I don't know what else you can say about it.”
Trump, for his part, pleads ignorance when he was asked by reporters in the oval office about the Atlantic story, saying that this was the first to hear about him.
The White House then released a statement that defended the president's national security team, including Waltz.
By Monday night, however, rumors in Washington are spinning that a high -level resignation may eventually be needed, with attention focusing on Waltz, whose invitation brought Goldberg in the group conversation. The White House has not provided further comments, even when this speculation has grown.
In its afternoon statement, the White House noted that strikes were “extremely successful and effective”. This could help minimize some political chat discussions that also revealed some divisions in the Trump National Security Team.
JD Vance was the highest-ranking participant in the text group of the signal, which discussed detailed plans for the US military strike in Yemen.
While the Vice President usually went to Locstep with Trump in his public commentary on foreign policy, in private discussions, he said he thought the administration was making a “mistake” by taking hostilities.
He noted that Huti's target forces in Yemen pose a bigger threat to European shipping, while the danger of US trade is minimal.
“I'm not sure the president is aware of how inconsistent this is with his message in Europe at the moment,” Vance writes. “There is an additional risk of seeing a moderate to heavy jump in oil prices.”
The Vice-President continued to say that he would support what the team decided and “keep these concerns about himself.”
“But there is a strong argument for delaying this per month, making messages on why it matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.”
This is far from the first time Vice President disagrees with his foreign policy president.
Dick Cheney has encountered George Bush in the shortest years of his presidency because of the handling of the Iraq war, and Joe Biden believes that Barack Obama's disguised operation for the murder of Osama bin Laden is too risky.
This is also not the first time the processing of sensitive national security materials has generated titles. Both Trump and Joe Biden were investigated for possessing classified information after leaving office. Special lawyer Jack Smith has charged Trump for suspected violations related to his refusal to hand over materials stored at his Mar-Lago-Delo residence, which was dropped when Trump won a re-election last year.
In 2016, the use of Hillary Clinton on a private e -mail server for communication, while the US Secretary of State became a major problem during its unsuccessful presidential campaign.
Like this chat from the White House group, some of these reports have provided an idea of ​​the internal work of the Clinton team.
Their revelation also turned out to be politically harmful. It is later considered that a handful of stored messages contain “top secret” information.
“We cannot have anyone in the oval office who does not understand the meaning of the word confidential or classified,” Trump said during this campaign – one of the many attacks against Clinton about what he said was a clear violation of federal law.
On Monday afternoon, Clinton went to social media to publish his own, brief commentary on the revelations of the Chat of the White House Group of Signal.
“You have to be kidding me,” she wrote.
