Editorial: Hold accountable officials who recklessly compromised national security

The Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press Editorial Board, The Virginian-Pilot on Mar 27, 2025

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Everyone involved in the nation’s defense — from the newly enlisted up to and including the military’s top brass — should be incensed that members of the Trump administration carelessly discussed pending operations against the Houthi militia in Yemen over Signal, a commercial messaging app.

Such recklessness not only appears to violate multiple laws, but it could have jeopardized the American service members carrying out the operations. The American people, and certainly those in uniform, deserve answers and for those who compromised security protocols to be held accountable, including by removal and prosecution if warranted.

In the first military action of the second Trump administration, U.S. forces struck multiple targets throughout Yemen beginning on March 15. The Houthi militia control much of the country, including the capital city of Sana’a, and have launched attacks on U.S. Navy vessels and commercial ships in the Red Sea for years.

Those missile launches have endangered U.S. service members, including personnel on ships stationed here in Hampton Roads, and disrupted global shipping, causing many companies to send ships south around the Horn of Africa rather than risk passage through the Red Sea.

Alarmingly, members of the Trump administration engaged in a detailed discussion prior to the attack using Signal, a messaging app, rather than the secure communications networks required for sensitive discussions. The revelation this week came via Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, who was added to a Signal chat titled “Houthi PC small group” a few days prior to the U.S. airstrikes. The journalist reported he was invited to the group chat by White House National Security Adviser Michael Waltz.

Others involved in the chat included Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. There were 18 people total in the group and, according to Goldberg, some of the information exchanged was classified, including specifics about targets, weapons to be used and even the sequence of the airstrikes.

The morning of March 15, Hegseth messaged the group with what Goldberg describes as “operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.” Goldberg did not publish the specifics in his Monday article, but wrote, “The information contained in [the messages], if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command’s area of responsibility.”

National security experts reacted to the bombshell on Monday with shock that such information would be so cavalierly exchanged on an unsecure platform, much less shared with a journalist. Goldberg posited that Waltz and Hegseth, by sharing classified material in such a way, may have violated the Espionage Act.

At the very least, they violated public records law by discussing such matters via Signal, where users can schedule messages to automatically delete after a set time period. And it’s worth noting that many of those involved have maintained that Hillary Clinton’s use of an unsecured email server while serving as secretary of State was an offense worthy of jail time.

Administration officials attempted to dismiss the severity of this episode, even calling into question its veracity, but Brian Hughes, the spokesman for the National Security Council, confirmed the chat was real. Officials such as Waltz and Hegseth cannot lie their way out of this.

Rather, this is an important test case. If members of the administration and Republicans in Congress take seriously their commitment to national security and the safety of our service members, then a thorough, unflinching investigation is needed to determine if laws were broken, to deter future security breaches and to provide answers to the American people.

This White House has repeatedly said it will not tolerate leaks and will punish those who compromise secrets. Now is the time for the administration to prove that’s not a lot of partisan bluster but holding these high-level officials accountable for their inexcusable misdeeds.