Nothing classified shared on Signal, says White House  

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth calls his post a 'team update.' He defends himself saying that there were "No names. No targets. No locations. No units. No routes. No sources. No methods. And no classified information"

Washington:  The Trump administration struggled on 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.

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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.

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?” Warner said in an exchange with reporters.

There are no signs that the controversy will fade soon for Trump, who has said he stands by his national security team and has assailed 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 chair 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.

But White House officials continue to insist no classified material was discussed in the March 13 to March 15 Signal chain and have launched scathing attacks on Goldberg. The Atlantic on Wednesday published the full content of the text exchange.

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 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.

Hegseth in an X posting 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,” Hegseth, added. Hegseth said that his post was a “team update.”

Waltz, who has acknowledged he built the Signal chain and has taken “full responsibility” for the episode, amplified Hegseth’s contention. “No locations. No sources & methods. NO WAR PLANS,” Waltz posted on X.