Trump cries ‘witch hunt’ as White House says nothing classified shared on Signal
Donald Trump has rejected calls for his defence secretary Pete Hegseth to resign and said he is ‘doing a great job’.
US President Donald Trump has hit out at members of the media amid concerns after officials discussed a military operation in a group chat on a messaging app to which a journalist was mistakenly added.
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. But Democrats have said that assertion strains credulity considering that it detailed plans for an upcoming attack on Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
Mr 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,” he said.
The decision on determining whether the information is classified ultimately lies with US defence secretary Pete Hegseth, who in the group chat listed weapons systems and a timeline for the attack – “THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP,” he wrote.
The Houthis have been wreaking havoc on vital Red Sea shipping lanes since November 2023 as the Israel-Hamas war raged.
Senator 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.”
“When you describe time, place, type of armaments used: Do they think the American public is stupid?” Mr Warner said in an exchange with reporters.
There are no signs that the controversy will fade soon for Mr Trump, who has said he stands by his national security team and has attacked the reporter’s credibility. At the same time, he has made clear his preference for his team to discuss such operations in person and in more secure settings, though it is not yet clear if changes will be implemented as a result.
Senator Roger Wicker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he and senator Jack Reed, the committee’s top Democrat, will send a letter to the Trump administration requesting an expedited inspector general investigation into the use of Signal.
They are also calling for a classified briefing with a top administration official “who actually has the facts and can speak on behalf of the administration”.
“The information, as published recently, appears to me to be of such a sensitive nature that, based on my knowledge, I would have wanted it classified,” Mr Wicker said.
Asked about the call for an inspector general probe, Mr Trump replied: “It doesn’t bother me.”
But White House officials continue to insist no classified material was discussed in the March 13 to March 15 Signal chain and have criticised Mr Goldberg. The Atlantic on Wednesday published the full content of the text exchange.
Mr Hegseth, White House national security adviser Mike Waltz and other administration officials on Wednesday uniformly insisted that no “war plans” had been texted on Signal, a claim that current and former US officials have called “semantics”.
War plans carry a specific meaning. They often refer to the numbered and highly classified planning documents – sometimes thousands of pages long – that would inform US decisions in case of a major conflict, such as if the United States is called to defend Taiwan.
But the information Mr Hegseth did post – specific attack details selecting human and weapons storage targets – was a subset of those plans and was likely informed by the same classified intelligence.
Mr Hegseth in a post on X said the message chain included, “No names. No targets. No locations. No units. No routes. No sources. No methods. And no classified information”. He did not directly address Democrats’ concerns about the timing and weaponry details in the chain.
“This only proves one thing: Jeff Goldberg has never seen a war plan or an ‘attack plan’ (as he now calls it). Not even close,” Mr Hegseth, who is travelling to the Indo-Pacific this week, added.
Mr Hegseth told reporters he had not texted “war plans” or “attack plans” in the Signal group, pointing out he had called his post a “team update”.
“My job, as it said atop of that (post), everybody’s seen it now – ‘TEAM UPDATE’ – is to provide updates in real time, general updates in real time, keep people informed,” he said before boarding a plane for Guam without taking follow-up questions. “That’s what I did. That’s my job.”
Mr Waltz, who has acknowledged he built the Signal chain and has taken “full responsibility” for the episode, amplified Mr Hegseth’s contention.
“No locations. No sources & methods. NO WAR PLANS,” Waltz posted on X. “Foreign partners had already been notified that strikes were imminent. BOTTOM LINE: President Trump is protecting America and our interests.”
Several Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday called for Mr Hegseth to step down.
“This is classified information. It’s a weapon system, as well as a sequence of strikes, as well as details of the operations,” said representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat from Illinois who is on the committee. “He needs to resign immediately.”
Mr Trump bristled at the suggestion that Mr Hegseth should step down.
“He’s doing a great job,” Mr Trump said. “He had nothing to do with it.”
Representative Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, in an exchange with director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard during the panel’s hearing on global threats on Wednesday noted that her office’s criteria on classified information make clear that it includes “information providing indication or advanced warning that the US or its allies are preparing an attack”.
But Ms Gabbard said the decision on whether the Signal chain should be classified lay with Mr Hegseth. Asked by Mr Himes if she believed the Pentagon’s classification guidance was materially different from her office’s, she failed to directly answer.
“I haven’t reviewed the DOD guidance, so I can’t comment,” Ms Gabbard said referring to the Department of Defence.
The Trump administration stance on the Signal chain is also a notable departure for a US government that routinely classifies a vast amount of far more mundane material, including millions of documents pertaining to military and intelligence operations and activities.
Advocates for open government have long complained that the push for secrecy goes too far, by protecting information that could shine a light on government activities or that would seem of little value to our adversaries, including material about UFO sightings and 60-year-old presidential assassinations.
Secretary of state Marco Rubio acknowledged that having a journalist in a Signal group chat with the most senior Trump officials was a “big mistake”. But he said he has been assured that the information shared did not threaten the operation or the lives of the service members.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt, during her White House press briefing, described the messaging thread “as a policy discussion, surely a sensitive policy discussion, amongst high-level cabinet officials and senior staff”. She dismissed the outrage as a “co-ordinated campaign” by Democrats to “sow chaos”.
Peppered with questions about how the administration can conclude classified information was not shared considering launch times and weapon systems were discussed in the chain, Ms Leavitt said it was up to the public to decide whose opinion they trusted.
“Do you trust the secretary of defence – who was nominated for this role, voted by the United States Senate into this role, who has served in combat, honourably served our nation in uniform – or do you trust Jeffrey Goldberg?” she asked.
