Messages with the War plans of Yemen inadvertently shared with a reporter appear ‘authentic’: official

The White House said on Monday a group of signals that discussed an American attack against Houthis in Yemen that inadvertently included Jeffrey Goldberg, an Atlantic chief editor, “seems to be authentic.”

The Trump administration members coordinated highly sensitive war plans in the group chat not sure, Goldberg wrote in A report for publication Mondays.

The spokesman for the White House National Security Council, Brian Hughes, shared with ABC News the statement he provided to the Atlantic confirming the veracity of a chat of a signal group, which Goldberg said he seemed to include the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, vice president JD Vance, the National Security Advisor of the White House, Mike Waltz, and the Secretary of State Framework, among others.

“At this time, the thread of the message that was reported seems to be authentic, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain. The thread is a demonstration of the deep and reflective political coordination between the high officials. The current success of Operation Hutí demonstrates that there were no threats to our service services or our national security,” Hughes said in the statement.

The revelation caused indignation and disbelief, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was pursued by criticism of its use of a private email server while in the State Department in the days prior to the 2016 presidential elections that lost to Trump.

“You have to be joking,” Clinton published in X.

Hegseth played Goldberg’s description of the Chat on Monday night.

“I have heard how it was characterized. Nobody was sending text messages to war plans, and that is all I have to say about that,” said Hegseth shortly after landing for a scale in Hawaii on a trip to Asia.

Hegseth criticized Goldberg as “a deceptive and highly discredited journalist and called a journalist who has made a profession of deceived again and again, to include, I do not know, the deceptions of Russia, Russia, Russia or the fine people on both sides, hopes or offspring and losers.”

“This is the guy that garbage pedals. This is what it does,” he added.

When asked about the incident, President Donald Trump said “he knows nothing about it,” and then added that he was listening to the journalist who asked the question for the first time.

Later, Trump seemed to make fun of history, publishing again on his social platform of truth, a publication of his advisor Elon Musk in X that said: “The best place to hide a body is page 2 of Atlantic magazine, because no one goes there” “

Goldberg told ABC News Live presenter, Linsey Davis, who initially responded to a request to connect with someone who intended to be waltz and then, since the user identified as Waltz together as another group chat with other high -ranking White House officials to discuss military action in Yemen, that someone was “making a hoax” about him.

“And the main reason why I thought it really was that it seemed completely absurd that the national security leadership of the United States would meet, you know, in a messaging application to discuss the next military action, and that they would also invite the editor of Atlantic magazine to that conversation,” he said.

“And then, when the attack seems to go well, they begin to share congratulatory texts, including emojis, cuff emojis, fire emojis, emojis of the American flag among themselves. And that was that was the day I realized, ‘Oh, this is possibly incredible, the United States leaders discussed this in my message application,” he said.

ASKED FOR HIS REACTION WHEN HE PERFORMED THAT THE CHAT WAS REAL, GOLDBERG SAID, “HONESTLY, MY REACTION WAS, ‘I THINK I’VE DISCovered A MASSIVE SECURITY BREACH IN THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL SECURITY SYSTEM, Chief of the Atlantic Is Being Given Access to this Kind of Information, Weapon Systems and Packages and Timing and Weather in Yemen and All Kinds of Information about Sequencing of particular Events, The Obvious There’s a Security Failure. “

The Pentagon sent questions about Hegseth’s participation in the discussion of the signal and the exchange of attack plans to the National Security Council and the White House.

The spokesman for the State Department, Tammy Bruce, was asked about the Atlantic report, including why the cabinet members were having a classified conversation about the signal and if Rubio was concerned about the implications of the incident.

“Well, I have two very short things to tell you: first we will not comment on the secretary’s deliberative conversations and, secondly, that you must contact the White House,” Bruce replied.

Democratic Senator Jack Reed, a classification member in the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement: “The carelessness shown by President Trump’s cabinet is impressive and dangerous.”

“If it is true, this story represents one of the most atrocious failures of operational security and common sense that I have seen,” Reed said. “Military operations should be handled with maximum discretion, using safe and approved lines of communication, because US lives are at stake.”

Other Democrats of Congress expressed disbelief and asked for investigations.

The leader of the minority of the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, described the incident as “reckless, irresponsible and dangerous.”

“These people are incredibly unqualified, irresponsible, and are endangering the national security of the United States,” he said about Trump’s administration.

“All this Trump administration is full of lackeys and incompetent budins. However, I am not talking about any particular individual,” he added. “I will notice that the Secretary of Defense who was in that chain has to be the most qualified person in leading the pentagon in the history of the United States. Think of that.”

In a statement later on Monday, Jeffries is a bit more forceful in his criticism of the Secretary of Defense.

“It is another unprecedented example that our nation is increasingly dangerous due to the elevation of reckless and mediocre individuals, including the Secretary of Defense,” Jeffries said.

The Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, urged the leader of the Senate John Thune and the Senate Republicans to work with Democrats in a “complete research” in the incident.

“Mr. President, this is one of the most impressive violations of military intelligence on which I have read in a lot, a long time,” Schumer said on the Senate’s floor. “This type of carelessness is how people are killed. This is how our enemies can take advantage of us. It’s how our national security falls into danger.”

Illinois Tammy Duckworth Senator, Lieutenant Retired Colonel of the Army National Guard, published in X: Pete Hegesh, the most unconditional defense secretary in history, is demonstrating his incompetence by literally filtering war plans classified in the group chat … Hegseth and Trump are making our country less safe. “

Delaware senator Chris Coans said that chat participants had “committed a crime, even if accidentally” and added: “We cannot trust anyone in this dangerous administration to keep the Americans safe.”

Arizona’s senator, Ruben Gallego, called the “fans” time episode.

“These are genuine [sic] They are also selling Ukraine and destroying our alliances worldwide, “he added.” It is not surprising that Putin is embarrasing them at the negotiating table. “

The president of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, minimized the incident, saying: “The administration is addressing what happened, apparently, an inadvertent telephone number reached that thread. They will track that and make sure that it does not happen again.”

Pushed if making a discussion about a third -party application was irresponsible, Johnson replied: “Look, I will not characterize what happened. I think the administration has recognized that it was a mistake and they will ensure that it does not happen again. I don’t know what else can be said.”

Johnson added that he does not believe that Waltz or Hegseth should be disciplined.

-ABC News’ Luis Martinez, Shannon K. Kingston, John Parkinson, Jay O’Brien, Oren Oppenheim and Lalee Ibssa contributed to this report.