In the 24 hours since a bombshell Atlantic article, senators have grilled Trump administration intelligence officials — but there are no signs yet that anyone involved will face any repercussions. The article, by Jeffrey Goldberg, details how he was inadvertently added to a chat on Signal, the encrypted messaging app, where key administration figures were planning a U.S. bombing operation in Yemen.NPR's Ryan Lucas followed a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, where CIA Director John Ratcliffe and the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard testified that no classified information was discussed in the chat group. Democrats challenged that assertion.And Willem Marx reports on reaction in European capitals. The Atlantic article included disparaging comments about European allies from Vice President J.D. Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.Email us at [email protected] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What triggered the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation?
If you could boil down how Democrats versus Republicans are reacting to Monday's bombshell Atlantic magazine story into a single 15-second clip, it might be this one. Georgia Democratic Senator John Ossoff questioning CIA Director John Ratcliffe.
Director Ratcliffe, this was a huge mistake, correct?
No.
Okay, to back us up a bit, that Atlantic story was written by Jeffrey Goldberg, and in it, he details how he was included, apparently by accident, in a group chat on the encrypted messaging app Signal. He spoke with me about what happened next.
I look at the group, it's 18 people or so, and it includes what I take to be the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Advisor, the Vice President, CIA Director, and so on.
Goldberg says he thinks it's a hoax at first, but he stays quiet and watches the conversation unfold. Eventually, they begin discussing a potential U.S. strike on Houthi targets in Yemen.
By Saturday the 15th, the text chain is filled up with what I would call operational military information of the sort that I'm not comfortable sharing. I'm not comfortable sharing, obviously.
But just to describe that, information about the targets, weapons that the U.S. would be using, and how the attacks would be sequenced, right?
Yes. I'm sitting in my car in a parking lot in a supermarket at 1144 a.m. Eastern, and I get this war plan from Pete Hexeth. And it basically says in two hours' time, you'll begin to see the effects of the bombing.
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Chapter 2: Who is Jeffrey Goldberg and what did he discover in the Signal chat?
Now, as for what's next, Democrats on the Intelligence Committee made this clear today that they want to get to the bottom of it, and they have very much vowed to get to the end of this.
That is NPR's Ryan Lucas. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you. And we'll note that NPR's CEO, Catherine Marr, is chair of the board of Signal Foundation, which runs the Signal messaging app. Ryan mentioned that adversaries like China or Russia might be interested in the contents of the Signal chat. Well, U.S. allies might as well.
Willem Marx in London has been following European reaction to the leaked texts.
The UK is America's closest ally for intelligence sharing and has played a small, significant role in operations against Houthi forces in Yemen at the centre of the recent revelations from journalist Jeffrey Goldberg.
So it was unsurprising British politicians fielded thorny inquiries about the security lapse, including UK Minister for the Armed Forces Luke Pollard, who faced repeated questions in Parliament. One lawmaker asked what would happen to UK officials if they shared sensitive military details in a similar fashion. Here's Pollard's response.
My general rule would be that if there's operational decisions that are being taken, we should all, regardless of our role within defence, take our information sharing seriously and there would be a... Clear consequence and disciplinary process for anyone that wouldn't be following those procedures.
It's not acceptable, is it? The UK's Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner, avoided any undiplomatic language when she was repeatedly pressed on the topic in a BBC interview.
We've been sharing intelligence and information for many decades and we continue to do that through our secure networks. It is for the US and the US President and the government to explain and decide what they're doing in regards to their security and that signal messaging group.
Across Europe, the focus has been on the Trump administration's sometimes scornful attitude towards European defence capabilities, as Germany's most read newspaper, Das Bild, reported in its audio version. Aside from the laxity with which the world's most powerful politicians share top-secret military strikes in an unsecured chat group, a reporter from Das Bild wrote,
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