'Maybe you wouldn't want that': Trump waffles when pressed on releasing secret war plans
Ever since the Trump administration started denying that the information on a Yemen bombing raid that was leaked on a messaging app was "classified," some officials and journalists have called for The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg to publish the entire exchange that took place amongst top defense officials.
Goldberg's bombshell article, released Monday, with the title, "The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans," claimed, "U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling."
Within hours, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted, "No 'war plans' were discussed," and added, "No classified material was sent to the thread."
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And on Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe repeatedly told the Senate Intelligence Committee that the chat didn't contain classified information.
The New York Times reported that Goldberg "rejected assertions by the Trump administration on Tuesday that details shared in the chat didn’t include classified information, saying simply: 'They are wrong.'"
The Trump administration then attacked Goldberg's credibility -- with the President calling him a "sleazebag" — even though Goldberg purposely omitted portions of the chat information from his article due to national security concerns.
"Asked whether it would be fine to release all the messages in the Signal chat since he says they are not classified, Trump demurs and tells me: 'I'd have to ask the military about that, because, you know, maybe you wouldn't want that. I don't know,'" Journalist Hugo Lowell posted to social media.
Lowell went on to write, "Trump suggests there will be a non-FBI investigation into the Signal leak" saying, "It’s not really an FBI thing. It's really something having to do with security, like, will somebody be able to break it? … And if that’s true, we're gonna have to find some other form of device."
Lowell added, "National Security Adviser Mike Waltz says he has never met and never communicated with Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, who was added to the Signal chat he reportedly created."
Trump has vehemently supported Waltz throughout the ordeal.