Sure it’s a screwup – but what’s really amazing is the easily disproven lies
One of the thorniest dilemmas a journalist can face is stumbling upon a state secret — especially one as sensitive as US war plans. That’s exactly what was revealed a few days ago to have happened, when Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, was inadvertently added to a private group chat among officials discussing the military strikes against the Houthis in Yemen.
It sounds like satire, but it’s very real. In that Signal group, they weren’t just chatting casually — they were actively discussing precise targets, operation timelines, and other details one would assume are restricted to secure, encrypted channels. Goldberg, a veteran journalist and no stranger to the nuances of national security reporting, suddenly found himself at the intersection of professional obligation and patriotic restraint.
What a fraught position! On one hand, he was handed the kind of access journalists dream of — unfiltered insight into the inner workings of military decision-making. On the other, to act on it immediately would potentially compromise operational security, risk lives, and undermine U.S. interests.
It’s a dilemma: Are you a journalist first, or a citizen? Do you want to risk undermining military operation you may think is brilliant and essential – or maybe criminal and stupid? Does it matter what you think? Can it really not? The right answer for a journalist seems to be Publish, and damn the torpedoes! We report – you decide? Really though? What if everyone dies?
Goldberg took his time. He didn’t immediately run to publish. He hesitated, likely consulting with legal and editorial teams, possibly even with national security officials. On TV he weighed the implications and danced around the details, only hinting at what he read in the group. For my money, in doing so he demonstrated the kind of restraint and judgment that’s increasingly rare in a digital age where scoops often trump substance.
In the end, events overtook the dilemma: The strikes have now been going on for almost two weeks. The Houthis know already — and being fanatics, it’s not at all clear that they care. If the strikes kill civilians, 10:1 says the Houthis are delighted somehow. That is the way jihadis roll.
If you ask me, the most jaw-dropping moment in this saga wasn’t the leak. Some clown – perhaps the National Security Advisor – put Goldberg on a list he should not have been on. A wider bunch of clowns then proceeded to seriously discuss war plans on an unsecured digital platform. This was Hilary Clinton’s email indiscretions (a non-government server!) to the Nth degree. So they are stupid and hypocritical. But from this crowd, that’s what one expects.
Nay, that is not the most amazing thing. The most amazing thing was the lie. Pete Hegseth, the highly problematic Secretary of Defense and former Fox host, went in front of cameras to say nothing of importance was discussed. “Nobody was texting war plans, and that’s all I have to say about that,” Hegseth proclaimed.
He also called Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of one of the most respected publications in the world, a “deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who’s made a career of peddling hoaxes.”
Trump almost certainly lied as well, first saying he “knew nothing about it” and then declaring that “it wasn’t classified information.” He also offered, in his way, that he is ”not a big fan of The Atlantic. To me it’s a magazine that’s going out of business. I think it’s not much of a magazine.” (The Atlantic, with 900,000 subscribers, announced in 2023 that it had reached profitability.)
So here’s the thing. It is one thing to lie and another to lie transparently and provably. These weren’t vague denials but outright falsehoods that could be swiftly disproven. And faced with such nonsense, that is what The Atlantic eventually did in publishing the chat logs, confirming that they had in fact been discussing real, live military plans. Anyone who wants to see the whole thing can read it here. For a teaser, consider this from Hegseth himself:
- “1410: More F-18s LAUNCH (2nd strike package)”
- “1415: Strike Drones on Target (THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP, pending earlier ‘Trigger Based’ targets)”
- “1536 F-18 2nd Strike Starts – also, first sea-based Tomahawks launched.”
- “MORE TO FOLLOW (per timeline)”
- “We are currently clean on OPSEC”—that is, operational security.
- “Godspeed to our Warriors.”
What this episode reveals is not just the fragility of operational security in the digital age, but also the alarming indifference to truth among some of the people tasked with defending the country. When confronted with a monumental screwup, the reflex by the country’s top officials was not transparency or accountability but to lie in a manner so brazen and hopeless as to suggest they truly think that the people are idiots.
This may not end well.
