Senate Democrats Lay Into Trump, and Trump Lays Into Atlantic Magazine Editor Over Signalgate

The fallout from “Signalgate” reached the Senate intelligence committee Tuesday, where Democrats lit into administration officials for a national security breach, while President Trump himself sought to downplay the impact of the leak by unleashing a tirade against the Atlantic magazine editor at the center of the tumult, calling him a “total sleazebag.”The developments marked a day of drama that saw several several top intelligence and national security officials comment publicly on the inclusion of Jeffrey Goldberg in the encrypted Signal group chat alongside national security advisor Mike Waltz, Secretary Rubio, and Secretary Hegseth. Mr. Waltz himself addressed the accident on Tuesday. He did not acknowledge that he had made a mistake, but did defend his administration colleagues and the president, while attacking Mr. Goldberg. “There’s a lot of journalists in this city that have made big names for themselves making up lies about this president,” Mr. Waltz said in the Cabinet Room as he pointed to Mr. Trump. “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 in,” Mr. Waltz said of Mr. Goldberg, who reports that Mr. Waltz himself was the one who added him to the group text thread in which war plans were discussed. Mr. Trump chimed in to describe Mr. Goldberg as a “total sleazebag” who runs a “failed magazine” that does “very, very poorly.”The journalist himself said that he may release the text messages and provide additional information to the public. During an interview with the Bulwark on Tuesday, Mr. Goldberg said there are “a lot of conversations that have to happen about” the prospect of releasing the messages. Other national security officials dodged questions about the incident during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing early Tuesday morning. The Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and CIA Director Ratcliffe maintained that no classified military plans were shared on Signal, earlier in March.Throughout the hearing, Ms. Gabbard was largely evasive when asked about her involvement in the group chat, frequently declining to “get into the specifics” of the group chat as it’s “currently under the review by the national security council.”In his story, Mr. Goldberg wrote that he was included in the “Houthi PC small group” chat group, and included screenshots of messages sent by several members of the administration. For instance, on the morning of March 15, just before America fired missiles on Yemen, Mr. Goldberg claimed that Mr. Hegseth posted on the group chat a “TEAM UPDATE,” complete with information on targets and US weaponry that Mr. Goldberg declined to publish. His reason: “The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel.”Appearing at Pearl Harbor military base in Hawaii, Mr. Hegseth told reporters that Mr. Goldberg was a “deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist” and said “nobody was texting war plans.” Mr. Goldberg fired back, telling CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that Mr. Hegseth was texting war plans like “when targets were going to be targeted, how they were going to be targeted, who was at the targets.” A spokesman for the National Security Council, Brian Hughes, confirmed the “veracity of the Signal group,” according to Mr. Goldberg. “This sloppiness, this incompetence, this disrespect for our intelligence agencies and the personnel who work for them is entirely unacceptable. It’s an embarrassment,” Senator Bennet of Colorado, who is a Democrat, said. “This is utterly unprofessional. There’s been no apology. There has been no recognition of the gravity of this error,” another democrat, Senator Ossoff of Georgia, said.“We will get the full transcript of this chain, and your testimony will be measured carefully against its content,” Mr. Ossoff added. Mr. Trump continued to downplay the seriousness of the Signal security leak, telling NBC News on Tuesday morning that the situation was “the only glitch in two months, and it turned out to not be a serious one.” The attack on the Houthis, he suggested, was successful.

Senate Democrats Lay Into Trump, and Trump Lays Into Atlantic Magazine Editor Over Signalgate

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