US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth texted plans to kill a Houthi militant leader in Yemen two hours before a military operation that would normally be a closely guarded secret, according to screenshots of a chat released by The Atlantic yesterday.
The revelation that highly sensitive attack plans were shared on a commercial messaging app, possibly on personal cellphones, has triggered outrage in Washington and calls from Democrats that members of Trump’s national security team be fired over the leaks.
President Donald Trump’s administration has sought to contain the fallout from the revelation that the March 15 chat included The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg on the encrypted messaging app Signal.
Hegseth has repeatedly denied texting war plans, and Trump and his top advisers are saying no classified information was shared, bewildering Democrats and former US officials, who regard timing and targeting details as some of the most closely held material ahead of a US military campaign.
“I think that it’s by the awesome grace of God that we are not mourning dead pilots right now,” Democrat Jim Himes of Connecticut said at a hearing of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee.
If Houthi leaders knew a strike was coming, they might have been able to flee, possibly to crowded areas where targeting is more difficult and the number of potential civilian casualties might be deemed too high to proceed.
The chat did not appear to include any names or precise locations of Houthi militants being targeted or to disclose information that could have been used to target US troops carrying out the operation.
Pentagon officials aware of the planning believed that information was classified at the time, one US official told Reuters, raising questions over whether, when and how Hegseth’s text messages may have been declassified.
It has also renewed scrutiny of Hegseth, who only narrowly won Senate confirmation after a bruising review that raised serious questions about his experience, temperament and views about women in combat.
Goldberg, who had initially declined to publish the chat details, did so yesterday.
The Atlantic magazine did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the release of the additional messages.
National security adviser Mike Waltz confirmed the killing of the Houthis’ top missile expert.
“We had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed,” Waltz wrote.
The US military has declined to offer basic details about the offensive in Yemen, including how many strikes have been carried out, what senior leaders have been targeted or killed and even whether the operation has a name.
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