This week’s big news was the disclosure that a journalist unfriendly to the Trump administration was "invited" to join in a group chat that discussed "war plans" targeting terrorists off the Gulf of Aden.
Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, reported Monday that nearly two weeks earlier, on March 11, he received a "connection request" on the Signal app from White House National Security Adviser Michael Waltz.
Goldberg said he accepted the invitation, under the belief that Waltz "wanted to chat about Ukraine, or Iran, or some other important matter."
Instead, the group that also included Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, discussed a possible attack on Houthi rebels based in Yemen, who had been targeting U.S. warships and merchant vessels entering and exiting the Suez Canal.
Two days later the United States launched its attack, and 12 days after that, Goldberg published his story under the headline, "The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans."
Scott Jennings, one of the very few conservative CNN contributors, admitted Monday that the story was shocking, and that the Trump administration "admitted that it was a mistake and they admitted that it’s authentic, they’re owning up to it, and that they’re still, based on what I heard, trying to figure out how it happened."
"I did learn a few things from some of my conversations," he added, and listed them as follows:
- The Signal application was already introduced for use by the Biden administration, and it was preloaded into government computers and other devices.
- Everyone was aware that the Signal app had its limits, and whenever classified information was going to be shared, they would go to "the high side" to share it.
- Goldberg’s use of the term "war plans" was an exaggeration.
- And finally, they engaged in a thoughtful, robust policy discussion and the policy worked — Trump had done what Biden could not or would not do.
Although it was, as Jennings admitted, shocking, the security breach was nothing close to breaches made by Democrats, according to Dr. Sebastian Gorka, deputy assistant to President Donald Trump and senior director for counterterrorism.
I'd like the American people to just ask one very simple question: Where were all these senators when Hillary Clinton was putting hundreds, if not thousands of classified documents on her unsecured private server?" Gorka said to Newsmax.
"Where were they when we found out, in contravention of every security protocol, classified materials were being kept by Sen. [Joe] Biden in his garage in old, deteriorated Zappos boxes from the shoe store?"
As far as that goes, where were Democrats’ national security concerns when the previous administration opened the southern border’s floodgates to organized gangs, cartels, and security threats from countries unfriendly to the United States?
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced yesterday that the administration was still trying to figure out how things went wrong.
"As the National Security Council stated, the White House is looking into how Goldberg’s number was inadvertently added to the thread," she said.
"Thanks to the strong and decisive leadership of President Trump, and everyone in the group, the Houthi strikes were successful and effective. Terrorists were killed and that’s what matters most to President Trump."
But whatever happened, Goldberg should share in the blame.
When he realized what was being discussed in the group chat, he had a moral duty to enter the conversation, identify himself, and tell the others that he had no idea why or how he was included, and then back out.
Stranger yet, Waltz told senators yesterday that he didn’t even know Goldberg.
"There’s a lot of journalists in this city who have made big names for themselves making up lies about this president," Waltz said.
"Whether it’s the Russia hoax or making up lies about Gold Star families, and this one in particular I’ve never met, don’t know, never communicated with, and we are looking into and reviewing how the heck he got into this room."
A distrusting person might believe that when the Biden administration loaded the Signal application into Waltz’s computer, they automatically included a journalist unfriendly to Trump into each conversation.
But however it happened, it turned out well.
No classified information was released, and the Houthi terrorists got a taste of extreme justice, courtesy of Uncle Sam.
Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and is a frequent contributor to Newsmax. He's also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and a Second Amendment supporter. Read Michael Dorstewitz's Reports — More Here.