The disclosure follows two intense days during which top members of Trump's cabinet from their intelligence and defense agencies have struggled to explain how details that current and former US officials have said would have been classified ended up in an unclassified Signal chat that included The Atlantic's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has stated that no classified information was published in the Signal chat.
Hegseth has refused to say whether he posted classified information on Signal. He is traveling in the Indo-Pacific and to date has only dismissed questions, saying he did not reveal "war plans." Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday that it was up to Hegseth to determine whether the information he was publishing was classified or not.
What was revealed is astonishing in its specificity and includes the type of information that is kept highly restricted to protect the operational security of a military attack.
In the group chat, Hegseth posted:
"1215et: F-18s TAKE OFF (1st wave of attack)"
"1345: F-18 'Trigger-Based' Attack Window Begins (Target Terrorist is at Known Location, so SHOULD BE ON TIME - also, Attack Drones (MQ-9s) Take Off"
"1410: More F-18s TAKE OFF (2nd wave of attack)"
"1415: Attack Drones on Target (THIS IS THE MOMENT WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY FALL, pending previous 'Trigger-Based' targets)"
"1536 2nd F-18 Attack Begins - also, first Tomahawks launched from sea."
"MORE TO FOLLOW (as per schedule)"
"Currently clean on OPSEC" — meaning operational security.
"God bless our Warriors."
Goldberg has said he asked the White House if they objected to the publication and the White House responded that they would prefer it not to be published.
Signal is a publicly available application that provides encrypted communications but can be hacked. It is not approved for carrying classified information. On March 14, a day before the attacks, the Department of Defense warned personnel about Signal's vulnerability, specifically that Russia was attempting to hack the app, according to an official not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
A known vulnerability is that a malicious actor, with access to a person's phone, can link their device to the user's Signal and essentially monitor messages remotely in real-time.
Leavitt is one of three Trump administration officials facing a lawsuit from The Associated Press on First and Fifth Amendment grounds. AP says the three are punishing the news agency for editorial decisions they disapprove of. The White House says AP is not following an executive order to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of the United States.