It’s jaw-dropping gall from team Trump, who just can’t admit a mistake

Washington: Identifying the most unbelievable part of the so-called Signal-gate scandal that exposed advance details of US military strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen is a tough call.

Was it that a well-known magazine editor was added – apparently by mistake – to such a high-level private conversation, involving some of the most senior officials in the Trump administration? Was it that such a discussion took place at all on a commercial messaging platform? Was it the way the White House and its allies, having been exposed for their carelessness, attacked the journalist instead of admitting a mistake?

That last point is hardly a surprise. This is an administration that sees offence as the best form of defence, and Jeffrey Goldberg – editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, who just happened to be copied into this highly sensitive Signal app group chat – is no friend of Donald Trump’s. The US president has branded him a “sleazebag” and “horrible, radical left lunatic” following negative stories.

Donald Trump with senior officials, including national security adviser Mike Waltz (far right).Credit: Bloomberg

Still, it was jaw-dropping to see national security adviser Mike Waltz – the guy who added Goldberg to the group chat – trying to shift the blame onto, well, Goldberg himself.

“This journalist, Mr President, wants the world talking about more hoaxes and this kind of nonsense rather than the freedom that you’re enabling,” Waltz told reporters during a meeting with Trump and other officials. “We are looking into and reviewing how the heck he got into this room.”

Later, Waltz went on Fox News and took responsibility for the error, but called Goldberg a “loser” and “bottom scum”, and implied he might have somehow disguised his phone number under someone else’s name on Waltz’s phone. Elon Musk was looking into it, Waltz added.

Politically, this scandal has extra potency because, as the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee Mark Warner put it, the Trump administration “has form”. Not only was Trump in the firing line for scattering classified documents around his Mar-a-Lago home during his first term, but he also disclosed classified information to Russian government representatives during an Oval Office meeting in 2017.

US President Donald Trump speaks with reporters on the South Lawn of the White House before boarding Marine One at the weekend.Credit: AP

The White House likes to say it is the most transparent US administration of all time. It is certainly accessible; Trump answers questions from reporters frequently, his Truth Social account offers a stream-of-consciousness insight into his thinking, and some administration figures appear constantly on TV.

While this attitude to the business of government – “just throw it out there and see what happens” – might be appealing in its openness, you run into trouble when talking about sensitive or classified information pertaining to intelligence gathering and military operations.

National Security Adviser Mike Waltz sought to shift the blame.Credit: Bloomberg

The administration’s defence is, effectively, no harm, no foul. The strikes in Yemen were a success, nothing important leaked in advance, so there’s nothing to see here.

US allies might see it a little differently. They might be asking whether the US can be trusted to handle secret intelligence if top officials are so careless they don’t notice a random journalist has been added to their group chat. Despite the assurances of CIA director John Ratcliffe that Signal is approved for these discussions, they might wonder about the norms and protocols followed by this administration.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s office and the Department of Foreign Affairs did not directly answer questions about whether Australia – a Five Eyes intelligence partner of the US – would raise concerns about this incident.

“This incident is a matter for the United States,” a spokesperson said. “Australia and the United States engage regularly on implementation of mutually recognised standards for the protection of classified material.”

Meanwhile, the whole affair risks becoming yet another example of the cover-up being the crime. At a well-timed Senate intelligence committee hearing on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT), Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard equivocated on key matters and dismissed its seriousness.

They both maintained no classified information was discussed in the chat. But later, they clarified they meant information that was classified by the intelligence community. The Defence Department was responsible for classifying its information, they said, and deferred to that department.

Indeed, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth is now the one with the biggest questions to answer about the material he posted in the group chat which, according to Goldberg, contained “operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the US would be deploying, and attack sequencing”.

At any rate, no matter the classification, most punters would accept that a private group chat about imminent military strikes on a US adversary is not something that should be shared with a random outsider – let alone a journalist – and that this amounts to a pretty serious security breach.

Not so John Ratcliffe, who was asked directly by Democratic senator Jon Ossoff: “Director Ratcliffe, this was a huge mistake, correct?” Ratcliffe replied: “No.”

That might be the most worrying answer of all.

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