I’m not sure Signalgate even deserves the suffix “-gate,” inasmuch as the scandal was revealed in an article in The Atlantic on Monday, and by Wednesday, pretty much everyone was searching for new angles on it.
Anything that peters out in 48 hours definitionally shouldn’t deserve invoking the spiritual connection to Watergate; I’ve had cases of mild food poisoning that have lasted longer than this, and Signalgate bears a striking metaphorical similarity to those periods of malady inasmuch as both were neither 1) good nor 2) anywhere near fatal.
So, in case you’ve been away at a hermitage since Sunday and are just emerging from your monastic retreat: On Monday, author Jeffrey Goldberg’s piece “The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans” was published in The Atlantic.
As I’ve stated before, the story is basically in the title, but TL;DR: Through some sort of zany mishap, Goldberg — a noted critic of President Donald Trump and his administration — was added by accident to a small group chat discussing the details of an unfolding strike on Houthi rebels in Yemen.
The group not only included National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who apparently invited Goldberg, but also Vice President J.D. Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, and other high-ranking officials.
By Monday afternoon, pretty much everyone was calling for professional heads to roll, particularly Waltz’s and possibly Hegseth’s. Hegseth himself said, “Nobody was texting war plans. And that’s all I have to say about that.”
On Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard — also in on the chat — appeared in front of the House Intelligence Committee, where she pointed out in a dialogue with Rep. Greg Steube of Florida why this wasn’t the scandal Goldberg made it out to be:
“Were there any sources described in the Signal chat?” Steube asked Gabbard.
Is Signalgate remotely comparable to the border invasion Joe Biden presided over?
“No, congressman,” she responded.
“Were there any methods described in the Signal chat?” he asked.
“No,” she responded.
“Were there any locations?” he asked.
“No,” she responded, again.
“Therefore, due to the fact that there were no sources, no methods, no locations described in the Signal chat, it does not make the discussion classified, is that correct?” he asked.
“That is up to the secretary of Defense’s determination,” Gabbard said.
“The Democrats are obviously making the assertions that what was in the Signal chat was classified and claiming that Secretary Hegseth put this ‘war plan’ out to the world — which he clearly did not. Were there any names in the Signal chat?”
No, obviously. No targets, no locations, no unit names, no unit locations, no routes, nothing like that:
“Wouldn’t an operational plan contain that type of information?” Steube asked after this litany of “nos.”
“Every operational plan I’ve ever seen has contained that information,” Gabbard said.
Considering that Gabbard is a veteran who was deployed to Iraq, as well as a congresswoman who served on the House Armed Services Committee, House Foreign Affairs Committee, and the House Homeland Security Committee — as well as the Director of National Intelligence — I would hope that she would know what an operational plan looks like for “war plans.”
Perhaps Jeffrey Goldberg and his editors at The Atlantic realized this, too, since they began changing their verbiage when they published the full Signal chat on Wednesday: “Here Are the Attack Plans That Trump’s Advisers Shared on Signal.”
Notice the slight shift? White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt certainly did.
Leavitt: Why did they downgrade their allegation about war plans to attack plans. They are now playing word games pic.twitter.com/9khv7JLTMt
— Acyn (@Acyn) March 26, 2025
I cannot reiterate enough that this isn’t saying what happened was good or desirable, or even minor. But the kind of thing that merits a “-gate” designation? Hardly.
In other words, unless Goldberg and Co. have something in reserve here, Gabbard’s series of “nos” should put this pseudo-event to rest. The original setup was dishonest, the faux outrage was dishonest, and even the publication responsible for unleashing the “scandal” is now revising its verbiage on what exactly it has. That should tell you everything you need to know about the sensitivity of the information The Atlantic was privy to.
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