BURSTSecretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said “someone made a big mistake” in adding the editor in chief of The Atlantic into a group chat with the Trump administration’s top national security officials discussing an attack plan on the Houthis in Yemen.
The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg reported that national security adviser Mike Waltz added him to the group chat on the commercial messaging app Signal. Waltz has taken "full responsibility" for creating the group chat, which also included Rubio.
Rubio, speaking during a press conference in Jamaica, did not call out Waltz and downplayed the sensitivity of the information shared on the chat, which according to Goldberg's reporting included the identity of an active official with the CIA and details surrounding the administration’s attack plans targeting the Houthis in Yemen, such as which fighter jets and drones would be used and the timing of their launches ahead of the operation.
“Someone made a mistake, someone made a big mistake and added a journalist,” Rubio said, adding that the chat was set up as a “coordinating” mechanism.
The Trump administration has undertaken an aggressive campaign to downplay the seriousness of the Signal group chat, claiming that information shared was not classified and did not pose a national security threat to U.S. operations. There’s outrage on Capitol Hill from Democrats, and some Republicans, who say the Signal chat was an embarrassing and reckless sharing of classified information.
Still, the Republicans have largely muted their criticism, even as they have said investigations are likely to take place.
Rubio said the information in the chat was not meant to be divulged and that it didn’t threaten operations of service members. Goldberg, in his reporting for The Atlantic, said he received a request from a user identified as Mike Waltz adding him to the chat, and that no one raised questions over his inclusion in the chat while he was there. He received no communication after the group was notified he left.
“I've been assured by the Pentagon and everyone involved that none of the information that was on there — though not intended to be divulged obviously, that was a mistake, and that shouldn't have happened and the White House is looking at it — but that none of the information on there at any point threatened the operation of the lives of our servicemen,” Rubio said.