A high-level White House investigation has revealed that The Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg was mistakenly added to a confidential group chat about planned U.S. airstrikes on Yemen, after National Security Adviser Mike Waltz accidentally saved the journalist’s phone number under a senior official’s contact, according to a report published Sunday by The Guardian. The mishap occurred last month when Waltz, intending to add National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes to a secure Signal chat discussing strikes on Houthi rebels, instead included Goldberg. The group, named “Houthi PC small group,” included top members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet — among them Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, and Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff — as well as over a dozen other senior officials. Goldberg’s inadvertent inclusion granted him access to sensitive discussions, including the timeline and operational details of the Yemen strikes, which he later reported on following the execution of the attacks. According to officials briefed on the White House investigation, the error traces back to October 2024, when Goldberg contacted the Trump campaign for comment on a story about the then-candidate’s views on wounded veterans. His contact information was forwarded internally and eventually sent via text message to Waltz. Although Waltz did not respond to Goldberg, his iPhone recognized the phone number in the message and automatically suggested it as an update to Hughes’ contact entry — a prompt Waltz apparently accepted without realizing. When Waltz later created the secure group chat after Trump’s return to the presidency, the mistaken contact led him to add Goldberg instead of Hughes. Trump, initially furious upon learning that Goldberg had been granted access to classified military planning — especially given his long-standing disdain for The Atlantic — considered firing Waltz. However, he ultimately opted against it, reportedly to avoid the optics of dismissing a senior cabinet member so early in the new term. “Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man,” Trump told NBC News, downplaying the breach and emphasizing that “the slip-up had no impact at all” on U.S. military operations. Waltz, who has not met or spoken to Goldberg, told Fox News the journalist’s number had been “sucked” into his phone through an iPhone feature and used unintentionally. Despite the breach, Trump affirmed his continued confidence in Waltz, calling the incident “the only glitch in two months” and “not a serious one.” (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)