Officials: Trump Refuses to Fire Waltz or Others Linked to Signal Chat Leak

Donald Trump has refrained from dismissing National Security Adviser Mike Waltz or Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth due to the controversial Signal group chat incident, for fear that such actions could imply acknowledgment of wrongdoing and appear as though they were conceding triumph to the Atlantic Magazine, according to White House insiders.

According to officials, the president has shown more concern over the revelation that Waltz possessed the contact information of the editor-in-chief of a magazine Trump dislikes, rather than focusing on whether the plans might have been confidential or about them being exchanged through an unclassified commercial application.

Related: Personal information of Trump associates in Signal controversy exposed online: report

However, once Waltz acknowledged taking charge of including a journalist in the Signal group, Trump publicly backed him and stated that Waltz had gotten the message. According to officials, Trump hasn’t requested Waltz’s dismissal mainly because he didn’t wish the Atlantic to declare victory over this matter.

This doesn’t imply that Waltz’s standing is completely safe. Trump has expressed dissatisfaction with the unfavorable press resulting from the revelations, which have been central to reporter inquiries at the White House and prominent in news headlines throughout this week since the issue first came to light on Monday.

Waltz has individually found himself in an unstable situation due to his occasional difficulties in connecting with Trump’s Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles. Additionally, there is a belief among certain circles that he doesn’t have significant support from key members within the Trump administration since his endorsement came from Senator Lindsey Graham instead of being backed directly by President Trump’s close associates.

Trump staffers have expressed anger towards Waltz for attempting to assert that he had neither met nor communicated with Goldberg, as well as suggesting that Goldberg had infiltrated the Signal chat. These claims were clearly untrue. According to them, Waltz's delay in admitting his error only extended the controversy.

The president has similarly defended Hegseth’s participation, despite him sending the messages that raised worries about sensitive information appearing in the Signal chat seeming classified. "Hegseth had no part in this. What does Hegseth have to do with this?" Trump questioned.

The officials stated that Trump viewed the messages within the Signal chat after they had been physically printed out for his review.

However, the efforts by the Trump administration to justify the disclosure of sensitive military strategies as non-classified information grew more difficult to support on Wednesday when the Atlantic released the complete text message exchange revealing the extensive details of the planned assault.

The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, reiterated that none of the communications involved were classified. Meanwhile, Hegseth and other officials argued semantically that the messages didn’t qualify as a "war plan," contrary to their initial description by The Atlantic, which subsequently started referring to them as "attack plans."

According to former U.S. officials, from a technical standpoint, a "war plan" would provide greater specificity regarding weapon types and routes, target coordinates, contingency plans, alternative strategies, as well as encompassing a more comprehensive discussion of overall tactics.

Nevertheless, the data provided by Hegseth encompassed an overview of the tactical specifics regarding the assault on Houthi insurgent positions within Yemen. This comprised the departure timings for F-18 fighter planes, the anticipated moment when initial ordnances would hit their marks, along with the scheduled release timing for maritime-based Tomahawk missiles.

All previous U.S. officials concurred that this military intelligence was highly classified due to national security concerns since the data was disclosed prior to the commencement of hostilities. If such information had become public, the intended targets might have evaded capture or disrupted the operation altogether.

The US Department of Defense’s own classification guidelines suggest the kind of detailed military plans in the Signal chat would typically be classified at least at the “secret” level, while some of the real-time updates could have risen to a higher level of classification.

The group chat also included a message from Waltz who shared a real-time update (“first target – their top missile guy – we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed”), which would have also ordinarily been classified at least at the “secret” level if it came from an asset operated by the intelligence community.