The administration of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, continued to face the fallout from an article in the Atlantic which revealed that the editor Jeffrey Goldberg was added to a group cat where the high-level government officials discussed the plans to bomb Yemen.
The White House remained in the control of damage on Tuesday, seeking to reject the allegations according to which the secrets of the government were in danger.
“There was no classified information, as I understand,” said Trump at a meeting of American ambassadors, waving the scandal aside.
“We have roughly examined that. It’s quite simple, to be honest. It’s just something that can happen. ”
He told journalists that he did not intend to ask for punishment, to skip the use of the signal of the application on social networks or to ask for an apology from the people involved.
Trump’s comments come in response to the Goldberg article, published a day before, in which the publisher explains how he received an invitation on the signal from the user’s messaging platform identified as the National Security Advisor Michael Waltz.
Goldberg accepted the invitation and quickly found itself in the middle of a conversation on the merits of the bombing of the Houthi fighters in Yemen.
While Goldberg refused to quote specific military information from the cat, he shared his article discussions published between civil servants at the highest level of government, including vice-president JD Vance and the defense secretary Pete Hegseth.
Vance, Hegseth and internal security advisor Stephen Miller, for example, were cited as debating the calendar of attacks and if the economic gain could be “extracted” from Europe in exchange for attacks.
The vice-president, in particular, expressed his concern that the attacks would do more for the benefit of European trade in the Red Sea, where the Houthis are known to strike naval and expedition ships.
The article created a splash in Washington, DC, almost as soon as it is published. Questions have been raised on the reasons why sensitive information has been discussed on a non-governmental platform, and if text messages would be kept, as required by federal laws on files.
Some of these questions have been asked directly to two of the Partal Signal participants, the CIA director John Ratcliffe and the national intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard, who attended the hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday.
“It was not only botched. It not only violated all the procedures, but if this information had been released, an American life could have been lost. If the Houthis had this information, they could reposition their defensive systems,” said Senator Mark Warner, the best democrat of the committee.
“It is also just breathtaking that all these senior people were on this line, and no one even took the trouble to check the safety hygiene 101.”
Senator Ron Wyden, another democrat at the hearing, described the signal cat “obviously reckless, obviously dangerous”.
“Both the mismanagement of classified information and the deliberate destruction of federal files are potential crimes that should be investigated immediately,” said Wyden. “And I want to clarify that I am of the opinion that there should be resignation, starting with the national security councilor and the defense secretary.”
Classified information questions
The position of the White House, however, was that no classified information was published on the reported cat.
In his article, Goldberg is clear that the Top Secret information was included in the group’s messages.
“The information contained, if it had been read by an opponent in the United States, could have been used to harm military staff and American intelligence,” wrote Goldberg.
If Goldberg had repeated this information in its publication, it could have opened up to legal repercussions. Instead, Goldberg offered a wide stage description of what happened in the cat.
“What I would say, in order to illustrate the shocking carelessness of this signal conversation is that the HegSeth post contained operational details of the strikes to come on Yemen, including information on the targets, the weapons that the United States deployed and attack the sequencing,” he wrote.
But Tuesday, Trump administration challenged this assessment, saying that no secret had been revealed in the reported cat.
“Jeffrey Goldberg is well known for her sensationalist spin”, the press secretary of the White House Karoline Leavitt wrote on social networks. “Here are the facts on his last story: 1. No” war plans “has been discussed. 2. No classified equipment has been sent in the course. ”
Ratcliffe and Gabbard have repeated similar remarks to the audience at Capitol Hill, denying sharing top secret information on the signal, whether on this cat or another.
“To be clear, I have not participated in any signal group message that concerns classified information,” said Ratcliffe.
“I have the same answer,” resolved Gabbard. Unlike Ratcliffe, Gabbard refused to recognize even if she was a cat participant, as reported by the Goldberg article.
Their position led to an animated confrontation with Senator Warner, who argued that – if the cat did not contain classified information – its content should be published immediately for examination.
“Why don’t you go into the details?” Is it because everything is classified? ” Warner asked.
“Because this is currently being examined by national security -“, began to answer Gabbard, as Warner interrupted: “Because everything is classified? If it is not classified, share the text now.”
During the meeting with the American ambassadors, on the other hand, Trump denied that there was a violation of national security.
“Our national security is now stronger than ever,” Trump told journalists. Instead, he blamed technology – and the signal application specifically – for allowing Goldberg to access the private chat.
“It is not perfect technology. There is no perfect technology. The very good are very heavy, very difficult to access,” he said.
Trump revives rivalry with the Atlantic
The scandal on sensitive Signal cat information also allowed Trump to renew his wide against Atlantic magazine, where Goldberg works.
Trump criticized the magazine in the past, especially after publishing a 2020 report which said that the republican leader had disrected soldiers who have fallen as “losers” and “dragees”. Trump himself is not a military veteran, but he publicly questioned the service of soldiers like the late Senator John McCain.
Goldberg is also the author of this article. Trump, on the other hand, had denied allegations, describing the article as “shame”.
The republican chief has long made his journey against the consumer media, even suggesting that their report could be illegal.
While addressed scandal at Tuesday’s meeting, Trump once again distinguished Goldberg for his reports.
“It turns out that I know that the guy is a Total Sleaze bag,” said Trump. “The Atlantic is a failed magazine. Very, very bad. No one cares about it.
Trump then turned to Waltz, who was also seated in Reunion, and defended the adviser’s apparent error by inviting Goldberg to the reported cat.
“He’s a very good man. This man is a very good man, just there, that you criticize,” said Trump, making a gesture to Waltz. “He’s a very good man and he will continue to do a good job.”
Waltz, a former American representative of the state of Florida, himself rang to point the finger of the Atlantic and its publisher.
“I think there are a lot of lessons. There are many journalists in this city that have made big names to invent lies on this president,” said Waltz.
“This in particular, I have never met. I don’t know. I never communicated with. And we look at him and examine how he entered this room. ”
The Democrats, however, praised Goldberg for his restraint not to publish national security secrets and to deliberately withdraw from the reported cat.
“No matter how much the defense secretary or other people want to denigrate him, this journalist had at least the ethics of not reporting, I think, everything he heard,” said Senator Warner at the intelligence hearing.
Trump Double-Down on Europe of “Free Charge”
However, what Goldberg cited motorized are messages where senior officials have discussed the opportunity to delay attacks against Yemen – and Europe would benefit most from the attacks.
A story seeming to belong to the Vice-President Vance, for example, published a comment highlighting how European trade crosses the Red Sea and the surrounding navigable ways.
“3% of American exchanges cross Suez 40% of European trade. There is a real risk that the public does not understand this or why it is necessary,” wrote Vance.
“I’m not sure that the president knows how incoherent this is with his message on Europe at the moment.”
Vance seemed to support the postponement of the bombing of a month, but he finally withdrew his objections – but not without another blow in Europe.
“If you think we should do it, let’s go. I just hate to jump Europe again,” seems to have written Vance.
To this, the defense secretary, HegSeth, would have replied: “VP: I fully share your reluctance of European free load. It’s pathetic. “
Back-to-back seems to confirm what has long been speculated in the public sphere: that relations between the United States and Europe are on a slide downwards.
Trump accused Europe of taking advantage of the United States, highlighting the trade deficits that show Americans consuming more European goods than Vice Versa. On April 2, his administration plans to implement what Trump called “reciprocal prices”, corresponding to import taxes that other countries impose.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Trump was asked if he agreed with the evaluation of Hegseth and Vance that Europe was “free”.
“Do you really want me to answer this?” Asked Trump, Deadpan. “Yeah. I think they were freelle. The European Union was absolutely terrible for us on trade. Terrible.”
He then changed direction, praising his peace negotiations with Russia and Ukraine, as well as the prices to come. “I think I was very fair to the countries that have really abused us economically for many decades.”
