The Trump administration’s “Signalgate” scandal remains very much in the “questions” phase as the White House struggles to explain how The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg was added to a secret, unsecured group chat of national security officials. Since the news broke, politicians and pundits have argued over everything from the semantics of “top secret” designations to the looming question of what consequences those responsible for the breach might face.
Prompted by the administration’s insistence that it has done nothing wrong, Goldberg has continued to release details about his experience as an unseen observer to military coordination among Cabinet secretaries. Initially withheld by Goldberg for fear of endangering U.S. troops and exposing their operational capacities, the tranche of specifics published by The Atlantic not only seems to disprove the government’s denials but brings into sharper focus the operational dangers this chat may have caused. Given the latest revelations, there are tactical risks that have national security experts worried.
The unredacted texts shared by Goldberg contained “very specific details of the timing of the launches from carriers of the planes that were to strike Houthi targets” in Yemen, said national security reporter Julian Barnes at The New York Times. Typically, information about the timing of a pending airstrike is “closely guarded” information to “ensure that the targets cannot move into hiding” or even “mount a counterattack” while the attack is underway. If the details discussed in the chat had been seen “at the wrong time by the wrong person,” said former Naval aviator Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) on X, it could have put active-duty soldiers at “serious risk of being harmed or killed.”
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The “specific attack details selecting human and weapons storage targets” shared by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth may not have been official “war plans,” a term that carries a “specific meaning,” said The Associated Press. But it was “likely informed by the same classified intelligence” as those officially designated documents and risked “tipping off adversaries of the pending attack.” The details shared by Hegseth could have allowed adversaries to “evacuate targeted areas ranging from command and control centers, to communication sites and firing positions,” said CNN, or even to “mass anti-aircraft and anti-missile weapons to overwhelm U.S. pilots.”
More broadly, sharing “targeting plans and the employment of American forces” as well as the sequence of such an attacks — information that would in other circumstances likely be highly classified — can provide “insights on how the U.S. conducts sensitive military operations” at large, said The Wall Street Journal. “Our adversaries are watching and learning,” said Brig. Gen. Peter Zwack (Ret.) to News Nation. The incident offers an “unprecedented insight into U.S. military decision-making processes for China, Russia and Iran.”
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who was included in the group chat, pushed back on the assertion that foreign adversaries could have capitalized on the information shared by Hegseth. “There were no sources, methods, locations or war plans that were shared,” Gabbard said during a House Intelligence Committee hearing on Wednesday. The fact that the Yemen operation was successful is proof that no serious harm was done by those participating in the chat, the White House has claimed.
What next?
Beyond any political ramifications for the Trump administration and growing questions about how it coordinates and secures sensitive conversations over commercial software, Signalgate could lead to concrete operational challenges for the intelligence community. There is potential for “significant damage” to crucial international intelligence sharing operations, said The Hill, “particularly with the Five Eyes alliance” of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.S. and the U.K. Both allies and adversaries will likely ask themselves: “can the U.S. government keep sensitive information in a secure manner?” said former Assistant Defense Secretary Mara Karlin to the BBC.
“Intelligence cooperation and sharing relies on trust,” former State Department spokesperson Ned Price said at Foreign Policy. “Something like this really erodes the fabric of trust that friendly intelligence agencies have with us.” and will make allies “think twice” about divulging their own secrets.
