U.S. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz took responsibility for the leak about strikes on Yemen in a Signal chat that included a journalist from The Atlantic and called the leak “embarrassing,” Reuters reports.
During an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Waltz confirmed he created the chat where highly sensitive details were posted about imminent U.S. strikes on Yemen and said those were not classified.
President Donald Trump’s administration has sought to contain fallout from an explosive article on Monday by The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, revealing that he was included in a group chat on the encrypted messaging app Signal with Trump’s most senior national security advisors to coordinate on Yemen.
Goldberg said Hegseth posted war plans shortly before the first wave of attacks on May 15 “including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing,” which he read from a supermarket parking lot on his phone.
Still, Trump’s administration said on Tuesday that no classified information was shared in the chat, bewildering Democrats and former U.S. officials, who regard that kind of targeting information as some of the most closely-held material ahead of a U.S. military campaign.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe also said no classified information was shared. But, pressed, they said Hegseth would be the one to determine what defense information is classified.
Asked about the potential publication of more information from that chat, Waltz told Fox he did not “want it all out there.”
