PNN – John Ratcliffe, the director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), said that the presence of the editor of The Atlantic magazine in a sensitive group chat of Trump administration officials on the Signal messenger, where they were discussing war plans, was “certainly” inappropriate.
According to the report of Pakistan News Network, the CIA director’s comments came during a tense exchange with Democratic Senator Michael Bennett at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Tuesday local time, during which the Colorado senator pressed him about the CIA’s rules for handling classified information and whether those rules were followed in the Signals conversation reported by The Atlantic.
Senator Bennett asked: Does the CIA have rules about handling classified information? Yes or no.
Bennett asked Ratcliffe if he agreed with US Defense Secretary Pete Hegsett’s view that the reporter had reported on the conversation in a “deceptive and highly discredited” manner.
The CIA director responded that Jeffrey Goldberg did not know the journalist and had no opinion about him as a person.
Bennett asked the CIA director: Did Goldberg lie about being allowed into this signals group? Please answer this question, don’t insult the intelligence of the American people, did he invite himself into the signals group?
Ratcliffe replied: I don’t know how he was invited, but it’s clear he was added to the Signal Group.
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The CIA director added that he had seen conflicting reports about how Goldberg was added. Pressed by Senator Bennett on whether adding Goldberg was appropriate, Ratcliffe replied: “No, of course not.”
After the hearing, Senator Bennett criticized Trump administration officials for failing to acknowledge the dangers of discussing military plans.
The Democratic senator said: These people, including the heads of intelligence agencies and the CIA, are declaring that what they did was okay.
Jeffrey Goldberg, veteran American journalist and editor of The Atlantic, announced on March 24, 2025, that the National Security Council of the Donald Trump administration mistakenly added him to a secret chat group on the Signal messenger, shared information with him about airstrikes on Houthi (Ansarullah) positions in Yemen, and learned about conversations between senior American officials about attacks on Yemen.
White House National Security Adviser Michael (Mike) Waltz initiated the conversation via the encrypted messaging app Signal. The group included the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Adviser, the Secretary of State, the Director of National Intelligence and other senior US government officials.
According to the report, the officials in the group discussed the necessity of carrying out strikes on Yemen and the Trump administration’s justifications for it. Goldberg, who followed the conversation via the Signal app, wrote: I’m surprised that no one in the group noticed my presence.
The Atlantic editor went on to say that he had voluntarily withheld some of the information in Hegsett’s lengthy letter, saying that its contents “could be used by enemies of the United States to harm American forces and intelligence personnel.”
President Donald Trump told NBC News on Tuesday that he still had confidence in his national security adviser, Mike Waltz. When asked if he was upset that the Atlantic story was getting attention, Trump said no, calling it “just a technical glitch in the last two months” and not a serious problem.
The United States has launched massive airstrikes against Houthi (Ansarullah) positions in Yemeni provinces since March 15.