House Democrat calls war chat 'most astonishing' national security breach in decades
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, on Monday railed against the Trump administration’s seemingly inadvertent inclusion of a journalist on a group chat planning military strikes in Yemen.
Meeks called for the chairman of the committee, Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fl.) to immediately hold a hearing on the “rank incompetence” demonstrated by the top leadership in the Trump administration.
“I am immediately calling on Chairman Mast to hold a hearing on what might be the most astonishing breach of our national security in recent history, where top leadership from DOD, State, Treasury, the CIA and even the VP himself used a commercial messaging app — Signal — to communicate U.S. war plans, all the while unaware that a journalist was included in the group chat,” Meeks said in a statement posted to X.
“Republicans have regularly contrived security ‘scandals’ to attack their political opponents with years of nakedly partisan hearings and investigations. This administration proves yet again that hypocrisy and cynical politics aren’t the only defining characteristics of today’s GOP; rank incompetence is front and center,” he continued.
Meeks' statement came in response to a bombshell report in The Atlantic that the magazine’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was added to a group text chain alongside Trump’s national security team, discussing the plans and execution of U.S. military strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen and the Red Sea.
The U.S. strikes occurred on March 17, with the Trump administration saying it was responding to Houthi attacks on U.S. military and commercial ships, threatening global trade and security.
The White House confirmed the group chat's authenticity. Goldberg reported National Security Advisor Mike Waltz added him to the Signal group. The group also included Vice President Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, among others, and included the dissemination of classified information.
Goldberg said the text included Hegseth sharing detailed plans of strikes on Houthi targets, what U.S. weapons would be used and the sequencing of attacks. When the attacks were carried out, Waltz sent a three emoji response: A fist, an American flag, and fireball.
Some Republicans quickly came to Waltz’s defense, with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) saying on Monday that Waltz and Hegseth should not be disciplined.
But the X account for the Democratic side of the House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) pointed out Waltz’s statement in 2023 criticizing the former Biden administration for not initiating investigations into top Democratic officials sending top secret information to private emails.
“Biden’s sitting National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan sent Top Secret messages to Hillary Clinton’s private account,” Waltz posted on soil media in June 2023. “And what did DOJ do about it? Not a damn thing.”
The Democratic HFAC account reposted Waltz’s statement with three emojis — a fist, an American flag, and a fireball.
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