Mike Waltz accepts “full responsibility” for the leak of the Signal group chat.
Along with a journalist who was unintentionally added, senior officials planned military strikes in Yemen in a group chat that US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz has taken responsibility for.
“I accept full responsibility”. Waltz told Fox News on Tuesday that it was “embarrassing” to say, “I built the group.”
President Donald Trump and US intelligence chiefs have downplayed the security risks and denied that any classified material was shared.
Nonetheless, Democrats and some Republicans have called for an investigation, and several lawmakers have described the breach as significant.
He was accidentally added to the Signal chat by a user named Mike Waltz, according to Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of Atlantic magazine.
Two hours before the bombings, he claims in his story-breaking article to have seen classified military plans for US strikes in Yemen, including weapons packages, targets, and timing. The article did not include that information.
During his Fox News interview, Waltz was unable to explain how Goldberg ended up on the chat, but he did contradict Trump by claiming that one of his staff members was not at fault and that another, unnamed contact of his was meant to be there in Goldberg’s place.
Waltz added that Goldberg’s number had not been on his phone. “We’ve the best technical minds examining how this happened,” he said.
Waltz stated, “I can tell you for 100% I don’t know this guy,” and he had asked Elon Musk for assistance in learning the truth.
Mike Waltz says, he bears “full responsibility” for the leak of the Signal chat group to the media.
The incident was downplayed by President Trump, who described it as a “glitch” with “no impact at all” on operations. Trump told Newsmax that Goldberg’s phone number was in the possession of someone who had a lower-level position with Mike Waltz.
At a Senate hearing on Tuesday, group members, including CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Avril Haines, the US Director of National Intelligence, denied that the message chain contained any classified material. Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth were also in the Signal group chatAccording to Senate Intelligence Committee Democratic Vice-Chairman Mark Warner, “This Signal chat situation sheds light on a sloppy and grossly incompetent national security strategy from the Trump administration.”
According to Goldberg’s report, the officials on the chat discussed how Europe might be able to cover the cost of the US guarding essential shipping lanes. The account linked to Waltz wrote on March 14 that “the United States will have to be the one that reopens these shipping lanes, whether it’s now or a few weeks from now.”
At Trump’s request, he added, his team was collaborating with the state and defense departments “to determine how to compile the cost associated and levy them on the Europeans.” Because they rely on those shipping lanes, the Europeans would benefit from the strikes, the Vance account complained at one point in the thread, adding, “I just hate bailing Europe out again.”
Three minutes later, the user who went by the name Hegseth replied: “VP: I agree with your distaste for European freeloading. It’s PATHETIC. Washington has been rocked by the revelation, which has led to a lawsuit and inquiries into why senior officials discussed such delicate topics on a potentially dangerous civilian app.
Archivists cautioned that the leak violated laws about the preservation of presidential records, while some national security experts have argued that it was a significant operational failure. The officials involved in the chat were sued by the nonpartisan watchdog group American Oversight for allegedly violating the Administrative Procedure Act and the Federal Records Act.
The group claimed that it had broken a law requiring White House officials to turn over their records to the National Archives by configuring the chat to delete messages automatically.
