Allegedly, a chat among high-level Trump administration officials, including the Vice President, somehow included a reporter for the Atlantic. It looks like a mistake so bad that it would embarrass Biden, but one person has an interesting theory, which is that the reporter was included deliberately to get a message to Europe.

Jeffrey Goldberg, a hard-left, anti-Trump reporter, had the headline and, for those who prefer their administration to be competent, it was stomach-churning: “The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans.”

According to Goldberg, he learned about the March 15 attack on the Houthis two hours before it actually happened, although he did not broadcast that information. The reason he had this inside knowledge, he says, is because “Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44 a.m. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing.”

Image by Freepik AI.

Goldberg explains that the message to join the conversation came to him from a “Michael Waltz” via Signal, which is a publicly available, albeit encrypted app, one that journalists often use. Although Goldberg suspected the sender was someone pretending to be Waltz, he nevertheless accepted the request.

Two days later, he found himself part of a Signal chat group entitled the “Houthi PC small group.” Sure enough, it seemed to be the real deal; that is, a chat including people such as Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, all discussing plans to attack the Houthis.

At this point, were Goldberg principled, he might have said, “Hey, guys! Are you sure I’m supposed to be included in this conversation?” But Goldberg is both a journalist and a leftist. Between a scoop and one-upping the Trump administration, that was an impossible option. He and his peers were a bit worried they were on the receiving end of misinformation from people other than the administration but decided that it was worth sticking around for the conversation.

Goldberg goes into great detail about the ensuing Signal talk, but the big headline has been that Vance was not on board with the attack and that the main players feel that Europe is not carrying its load. According to Goldberg:

The account labeled “JD Vance” responded at 8:16: “Team, I am out for the day doing an economic event in Michigan. But I think we are making a mistake.” (Vance was indeed in Michigan that day.) The Vance account goes on to state, “3 percent of US trade runs through the suez. 40 percent of European trade does. There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary. The strongest reason to do this is, as POTUS said, to send a message.”

The Vance account then goes on to make a noteworthy statement, considering that the vice president has not deviated publicly from Trump’s position on virtually any issue. “I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now. There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices. I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself. But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.”

At a later point, the Vance account wrote to the Hegseth account, “if you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again.”

The Hegseth account responded,

VP: I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC. But Mike is correct, we are the only ones on the planet (on our side of the ledger) who can do this. Nobody else even close. Question is timing. I feel like now is as good a time as any, given POTUS directive to reopen shipping lanes. I think we should go; but POTUS still retains 24 hours of decision space.

A user named SM (Stephen Miller?) added,

As I heard it, the president was clear: green light, but we soon make clear to Egypt and Europe what we expect in return. We also need to figure out how to enforce such a requirement. EG, if Europe doesn’t remunerate, then what? If the US successfully restores freedom of navigation at great cost there needs to be some further economic gain extracted in return.

Goldberg provided screen grabs on this part of the conversation. There’s more, but those are the top takeaways.

The big question at this point is whether we witnessed massive incompetence at the highest levels of the Trump government or whether Goldberg was right all along that he was being used—whether by actors within the administration working to get a message out or, as Goldberg initially thought, by malevolent people outside of the administration.

Cynical Publius, a conservative on X who claims a military background, offers a different theory. He did acknowledge, via a link to an essay from The Hacker News, that it could be Russian disinformation.

However, the more interesting theory is that this was a set-up, with government officials intentionally “mistakenly” including Goldberg to get a message out to the European political community:

The most interesting part of the tweet is the last sentence:

Re: the Signal chat and The Atlantic article.

The minute I read the chat my very first thought was that Goldberg was specifically and deliberately included so that he would leak what he saw to the public.  The idea was to let Europe know just how unhappy American leadership is with Europe's unwillingness to pull its weight militarily.  The backchannel, seemingly accidental nature of that reveal was powerful and I believe intentional.

Also, as someone who has read his fair share of Top Secret/SCI war plans, this ain't it. (Emphasis mine.)

Once the tweet got traction, Cynical Publius updated the tweet to acknowledge that this could well have been a dreadful mistake or the work of a single bad actor in the chat. However, he also said that we’d be wise not to trust Jeffrey Goldberg based on the latter’s history:

Alright, listen up.

I threw out a theory that the Goldberg chat may have been a set-up.  That theory is getting a lot of visibility.

I still think it could have been.  I also think it could have been a mistake.  Or it could have been a traitor in the chat.

I don't know, and anyone who thinks I cited my "first thoughts" theory for any reason other than to promote discussion is wrong.

I will stand by the following, however:

The chat Goldberg describes specifically and deliberately talked about classified information being shared on "the high side" (i.e., the classified SIPRNET), and every time Goldberg discusses what HE believes to be classified data he caveats it in the article with the word "conceivably."  I will not believe classified info was shared in the open until that fact is proven by someone other than Jeffrey Goldberg.

Remember this: Jeffrey Goldberg talked America into the 2003 invasion of Iraq with false stories about a Saddam/al Qaeda connection and he has steadfastly maintained  that Donald Trump is a "de facto agent" of Vladimir Putin.

My "first thoughts" theory might be wrong.  But the fact that Jeffrey Goldberg cannot be trusted to speak truthfully is not wrong.

Taking the whole story with a grain of salt while awaiting word from the administration is a wise way to go, so I’ll leave the discussion right here.