(NewsNation) — Questions still linger over an incident where a journalist from The Atlantic got access to a Signal chat between Trump administration officials, including national security adviser Mike Waltz and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
In the chat, officials openly discussed air strikes on Houthis in Yemen hours before they happened.
The administration has pushed back on claims that classified information was shared in the chat.
Hegseth kicked the press out of an event he had with Guam’s governor before questions could be asked. He is traveling to the Philippines.
On Wednesday, Hegseth said no one was texting war plans in the Signal conversation.
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“There’s no units, no locations, no routes, no flight paths, no sources, no methods, no classified information,” Hegseth said. “You know who sees war plans? I see them.”
Trump said Thursday night he didn’t know if the information was classified, instead saying, “You have to ask the various people involved.” The president added that the focus should be on the success of the mission in defeating the Houthis.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio was one of the few administration officials who said it was a mistake that Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg got into the chat in the first place. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was pressed on this by NewsNation’s Libbey Dean this morning.
“Well, we have never denied that this was a mistake, and the national security adviser took responsibility for that, and we have said we are making changes,” Leavitt said. “We are looking into the matter to ensure it can never happen again.”
As NewsNation reported earlier this week, the heads of the Senate Armed Services Committee are calling for a bipartisan investigation into the matter. They are asking the Defense Department’s inspector general to step in.
Signal Lawsuit
The Signal fiasco is now making its way into the courtroom.
An organization called American Oversight is suing Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Rubio.
“The lawsuit seeks to prevent further unlawful destruction of federal records and to compel the recovery of any records created through their unauthorized use of Signal,” American Oversight said in a statement.
A familiar name is overseeing the case — Judge James Boasberg, who also addressed the Trump administration’s deportation of migrants to El Salvador. Administration officials say these were members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
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Boasberg, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, is also ruling on two other lawsuits: one challenging a federal grant funding freeze and another looking into Department of Government Efficiency records.
The president overnight said it was “disgraceful” that Boasberg was given a fourth ‘Trump case,’ something which is, statistically, IMPOSSIBLE.”
“There is no way for a Republican, especially a TRUMP REPUBLICAN, to win before him,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
A new YouGov poll finds that 74% of Americans say the conduct of the Trump administration officials is a “very or somewhat serious” problem, with 60% of Republicans saying the same.
