Several top Trump administration officials are facing scrutiny for sending detailed operational plans and other likely highly classified information about US military strikes on Yemen to a group chat on a messaging app that inadvertently included the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg.
The mistake amounts to an unprecedented breach of security by some of President Donald Trump’s most senior national security officials and raises questions about whether they violated the Espionage Act, which makes it illegal to mishandle national defense information.
Normally, discussions of this nature occur in a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF), a highly secure area to discuss classified information.
A spokesperson for the National Security Council told CNN the messages appeared to be authentic. When asked about the report, Trump told reporters on Monday in the Roosevelt room, “I don’t know anything about it.”
A CNN KFile review uncovered multiple instances in which officials, believed by Goldberg to have joined the group chat, previously criticized others for how they handled classified information and materials.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host; White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller; national security adviser Mike Waltz; and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have all made public comments in the past attacking officials under Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden for allegedly being sloppy with sensitive government information. CNN reached out to the officials’ agencies for comment.
Much of that criticism has revolved around Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was Secretary of State under President Obama.
Rubio, identified by Goldberg in the chat as “MAR,” repeatedly attacked Clinton over the issue in 2015 and 2016 – tweeting about it at least a dozen times.
“Nobody is above the law. Not even Hillary Clinton – even though she thinks she is,” he said on Fox News in January 2016.
In an August 2015 Fox News interview, Rubio noted that classified information should only be viewed in a secure room to protect it from unauthorized access or surveillance.
“You most certainly know you shouldn’t be talking about it or passing it on in an email, particularly to a private server like the one she had. What they did is reckless – it’s complete recklessness and incompetence.”
In a November 2016 Fox News appearance, Hegseth called Clinton’s use of the email server, “criminal.”
“People have gone to jail for 1/100th of what – even 1/1,000th of what Hillary Clinton did.”
In September 2017, Hegseth criticized Clinton’s use of the server on Fox News, calling her “such a corrupt politician,” and her actions “reckless.”
Waltz, who invited The Atlantic journalist to the group chat, similarly tweeted his outrage that the Department of Justice did not pursue charges against Clinton for her private messages.
“Biden’s sitting National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan sent Top Secret messages to Hillary Clinton’s private account. And what did DOJ do about it? Not a damn thing,” Waltz tweeted in June 2023.
Earlier that week, Waltz lamented, “How is it Hillary Clinton can delete 33,000 government emails on a private server yet President Trump gets indicted for having documents he could declassify?”
And in a Fox News interview in May 2024, Waltz said of Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, “All of those things are a crime, he should be charged at least.”
“I have seen those classified documents that were sitting in Biden’s garage and his basement – highly classified, highly relevant to what’s going on in the world today, with very, very sensitive sources,” he added.
In August 2022, Miller tweeted, “One point that doesn’t get made enough about Hillary’s unsecured server illegally used to conduct state business (obviously created to hide the Clintons’ corrupt pay-for-play): foreign adversaries could easily hack classified ops & intel in real time from other side of the globe.”
Clinton’s email scandal is not the only example. In a late 2012 appearance on Fox News, Hegseth criticized sharing classified information with journalists and filmmakers in a segment regarding how the Obama administration shared intelligence to the filmmakers of “Zero Dark Thirty,” a 2012 film that depicts the CIA’s decadelong hunt for Osama bin Laden after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Hegseth responded, “If we’re sharing intelligence with filmmakers in addition to it being leaked to the New York Times, and we’re releasing movies to affect political elections based on that intelligence, that’s an absolute bright line of something we shouldn’t be doing.”
Zero Dark Thirty was released in mid-December 2012 – a month after the 2012 presidential election.
Another national security official Goldberg believes was on the chain, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard tweeted on March 14, denouncing leaking information to journalists.
“Any unauthorized release of classified information is a violation of the law and will be treated as such.” The tweet came one day after the group chat began and one day before the US military strikes in Yemen occurred.
Gabbard recently pulled security clearances from current and former Biden administration officials and barred access to classified information briefings. The move, made at Trump’s direction, was seen as retaliation for Biden revoking security clearance from Trump amidst his administration’s mishandling of classified documents.
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