The moment Democrats were waiting for was finally here: A mistake made by the Trump Team. It was a mistake, but it was unforced. Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of The Atlantic’s far-left publication, was somehow included in a conversation with Vice President JD Vance, Secretary Pete Hegseth, and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz. They were discussing the possibility of an attack against Houthi militants who are disrupting key shipping routes in Yemen.
Goldberg should have immediately alerted the White House that he was included in the conversation, but the attention-seeker kept quiet while the messages were being exchanged. He promised to deliver bombshell evidence that officials were discussing top-secret plans for war over the encrypted app when he went public.
They did not reveal any secrets, but the story has faded, much to the media and Democrats’ dismay. Hegseth was fired, even though he did not set up the chat, some officials were impeached, and Mike Waltz was publicly humiliated, as it was his office that created the chain.
There was no doubt that there was a mistake, but this was not Watergate. It was also not a “constitutional crises” or utter failure in intelligence. It was mostly just a little embarrassing.
The question is: How did Goldberg end up in the chat? The Guardian has revealed in an exclusive report that they have the answer, and it’s a long process.
Goldberg was included in the list due to a series of events and a mistaken keystroke:
Three people who were briefed about the internal investigation claim that Goldberg emailed the Trump campaign a story criticizing his attitude toward wounded servicemen. Waltz, the campaign’s surrogate for national security, was enlisted to help the campaign push back on the story.
Goldberg’s email was forwarded to then Trump spokesperson Brian Hughes, who then copied and pasted the content of the email – including the signature block with Goldberg’s phone number – into a text message that he sent to Waltz so that he could be briefed on the forthcoming story.
Waltz then accidentally added Goldberg’s contacts to his phone- but with the wrong name.
Waltz didn’t call Goldberg at the end, according to the sources, but in a bizarre twist, he accidentally saved Goldberg’s number on his iPhone, under Hughes, who is now the spokesperson of the National Security Council.
It’s exactly what you would expect: an unfortunate mistake that should not be repeated in the future. The most interesting part of the report to me is Trump’s supposed reasoning for not firing Waltz as many people had demanded.
Trump considered firing Waltz for the incident. He was more upset that Waltz knew the number of Jeffrey Goldberg – the editor of Atlantic, a magazine that he hates – than that the discussion of military operations took place on a non-classified system like Signal.
Trump chose not to fire him, mainly because he didn’t want the Atlantic or the media in general to feel satisfied that a cabinet official was forced out of office just weeks into Trump’s second term. Trump was also reassured by the results of the internal investigation.
Media and Democrats wanted a huge scandal to destroy Trump’s presidency. They didn’t succeed.
