Top US intelligence officials were grilled by lawmakers Wednesday, two days after a report in The Atlantic revealed that members of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet used the messaging app Signal to discuss detailed operational plans about its mid-March military strikes against Houthi militants in Yemen.
According to The Atlantic, national security adviser Mike Waltz convened a text conversation with top US officials, including Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, to discuss strike plans. Waltz, apparently accidentally, added Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to the chain.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, speaking to the House Select Committee on Intelligence, acknowledged Wednesday that the inclusion of Goldberg in the Signal chat was “a mistake.” But she reiterated her belief that the chat contained no classified information, and she said the National Security Council was conducting “an in-depth review.”
The Trump administration has sought to discredit The Atlantic and downplay the sensitivity of messages by insisting that there was no classified information shared. Trump called the fallout “a witch hunt.” He said Waltz took responsibility for creating the Signal group but shrugged off any culpability on Hegseth’s part. He also said nothing in the chat “compromised” the attack.
According to a US defense official familiar with the operation and another source who was briefed on it afterward, the information Hegseth shared was highly classified at the time he wrote it, especially because the operation had not even started yet.
The Atlantic published the full sequence of texts on Wednesday. It offered a detailed description of the strike, including the airplanes and drones that would be used. CNN has annotated the key portions of the group conversation with additional reporting and context.
Here are some of the stories that made headlines over the past week, as well as some photos that caught our eye.
