Trump's top officials shared secret war plans in chat that included journalist

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared secret plans for a U.S. strike on Iran -backed militants in Yemen with a group chat of top Trump administration officials.

The Atlantic magazine's editor-in-chief was accidentally added to the chat titled “Houthi PC small group” The group included users whose names matched Trump 's top officials, including Vice President JD Vance , Secretary of State Marco Rubio , Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe , White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles , and Brian McCormack .

The chat "appears to be an authentic message chain," a White House spokesperson said.

If the chat included actual classified information, then all of those officials who were party to the chat likely broke at least several federal laws including the National Security Act .

Similar disclosures of classified information have led to heavy charges and long jail sentences.

Even if Signal purports to be encrypted, it is likely only “end to end encryption,” meaning the messages can’t be intercepted in midstream, an expert says.

“If true, these actions are a brazen violation of laws and regulations that exist to protect national security,” Himes said.

“These individuals know the calamitous risks of transmitting classified information across unclassified systems,’ he said.

A lower ranking official under their command would likely lose their security clearance and be subject to criminal investigation for doing the same.