'This is an active CIA officer': Journalist reveals 'astonishing' detail in war plans chat

24 March

Earlier this month, a journalist was inadvertently included on a group text with more than a dozen Cabinet-level officials in President Donald Trump's administration. He's now carefully sharing some of the more scandalous revelations that were shared before he removed himself from the chat.

On Monday, Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg wrote an article explaining how we was invited to a group text thread on the encrypted text messaging app Signal by White House National Security Advisor Mike Waltz. He recalled how the top national security officials like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and CIA Director John Ratcliffe shared highly classified operational details about airstrikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Goldberg then told MSNBC host Jen Psaki that as a longtime reporter in the national security field, he was floored by the lack of operational security exercised by those on the chat. He noted that it seemed "unbelievable" for people with the highest-level security clearances to be discussing sensitive information on a "commercial messaging app." He also initially wondered if he was being targeted in a "disinformation operation" by a hostile nation, before he decided to check online and see if there were strikes in Yemen happening when Hegseth said the strikes would be carried out.

"I wanted to understand what was going on here," Goldberg said. "At the end of the day, the most obvious explanation is that it's just real ... Because I had never seen senior government officials act this way."

Psaki then compared the way the Trump administration officials were sharing classified information on Signal with the way she was required to handle classified information when she worked for former President Barack Obama. The MSNBC host recalled that when she read a "numbered copy" of a memo on Russian interference in the 2016 election, she had to do it in a SCIF (secure compartmentalized information facility) before giving it right back. She then asked Goldberg about one detail in which Ratcliffe allegedly shared the name of "somebody who sounded like a covert operative" when Cabinet officials were giving names of public officials who were their points of contact on the Yemen operation.

"Other people name other people who are publicly named, public figures. Ratcliffe names a person — I'm not going to say the name the whole, real name of this person who is going to be his liaison — and in the course of my reporting and trying to understand, I came to understand that this is an active CIA officer," Goldberg said. "His name has never been in public before ... And so, I was, I have to say, somewhat astonished that he would put this official's name into what is essentially an open channel."

Watch the video of Goldberg's comments below, or by clicking this link.

From Your Site Articles