Washington: The Trump administration struggled Wednesday to stem the fallout from revelations that top national security officials discussed sensitive attack plans over a messaging app and mistakenly added a journalist to the chain.
The White House said the information shared through the publicly available Signal app with Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine, was not classified, an assertion that Democrats said strains credulity considering that it detailed plans for an upcoming attack on Yemen’s Houthis.
President Donald Trump during an Oval Office appearance to announce new tariffs on imported vehicles seemed frustrated as reporters repeatedly questioned him about the matter. “I think it’s all a witch hunt,” Trump said.
The decision on determining whether the information is classified ultimately lies with Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who in the chain listed weapons systems and a timeline for the attack — “THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP,” he wrote. Sen Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the position that the Trump administration is staking out can be described with one word: “Baloney.”