Signalgate: Pete Hegseth’s problematic passion for groupchats

Trump administration senior officials are facing harsh criticism after it was revealed that they had used the personal messaging app Signal to discuss highly classified military intelligence in a group chat. The chat, in which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth laid out plans for an upcoming military strike in Yemen, inadvertently added Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine, as a participant.
Though the rest of the chat’s participants – including national security advisor Michael Waltz, Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard – doubled down on insisting nothing improper had happened. But after details of a second chat emerged, even harsher scrutiny fell upon Hegseth, who was a Fox News anchor prior to Donald Trump appointing him as Defense Secretary.
Further investigations revealed that he had a startlingly accessible digital presence, raising questions over whether he’s left key classified information vulnerable to foreign adversaries.
Read on below our live updates as we track the fallout from the Signal group chat.