The News
US magazine The Atlantic has released more details from the Signal chat which inadvertently included the outlet’s editor after administration officials denied that classified information was shared in the conversation.
The White House doubled down on the administration’s dismissal of the leak’s gravity, which many analysts have described as without precedent.
It remains unclear why Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg was included in the group — US National Security Advisor Mike Walz said Tuesday he had added Goldberg by accident and accepted “full responsibility” for looping Goldberg in a conversation about a planned strike on the Houthis, an Iran-backed militant group in Yemen. Also on Tuesday, government watchdog group American Oversight sued the Trump officials included in the chat, alleging federal record law violations.
SIGNALS
Leak reinforces intelligence-sharing concerns among US allies
The leak has almost certainly further stoked US allies’ existing concerns over intelligence sharing, Politico wrote: One top UK politician said the revelations should make the country’s intelligence community “nervous” about working with the US. British spies are reportedly considering restrictions on sharing certain material with the US, The iPaper reported. Members of the US-led Five Eyes intelligence sharing network would be “entirely justified to wonder just how secure their intelligence can be in the hands of US officials” after the leak, one analyst wrote. Still, a complete break in intelligence coordination remains unlikely: “Our relationship transcends individual administrations and individual leaders,” a former New Zealand security minister told The Guardian.
Trump has long indicated ‘indifference’ toward classified information
US President Donald Trump’s downplaying of the leak as a “glitch” is “the latest entry in a long-running — and ever-expanding — legacy of indifference toward America’s secrets,” Axios wrote. Trump has survived previous similar incidents — including being indicted on allegations of mishandling classified documents after his first term — and that may boost the administration’s confidence that Trump’s White House “can easily handle what would kill any other administration,” one adviser to the president said. The official response to the scandal so far “indicates a deep-rooted culture of irresponsibility, excuse-making, and blame-shifting,” the National Review wrote, particularly given many in the administration’s fierce criticism of other politicians caught up in similar scandals in the past.
Leak compounds US defense secretary’s ‘rocky’ start
The Signal debacle has capped “a rocky two months” for Pete Hegseth, The New York Times noted: The defense secretary has repeatedly been reined in by the administration, including by Donald Trump himself. Hegseth’s dismissal of the seriousness of the leak now has “revived alarm among Democrats and seasoned national security professionals about Hegseth,” The Washington Post wrote. Concerns are growing that his judgement may be clouded by political loyalty to Trump, rather than in military and defense prowess. “Nothing destroys a leader’s credibility with soldiers more thoroughly than hypocrisy or double standards,” Times columnist and US military veteran David French wrote.