Washington, 26 March 2025 (dpa/MIA) - The Atlantic magazine on Wednesday published additional details about a secret group chat between high-ranking US officials that included the magazine's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg.

"There is a clear public interest in disclosing the sort of information that [US President Donald Trump's] advisers included in nonsecure communications channels," Goldberg and his co-author Shane Harris wrote in the story.

"Especially because senior administration figures are attempting to downplay the significance of the messages that were shared," they added.

In hearings and statements made on Tuesday, several US officials, including Trump, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and CIA Director John Ratcliffe said no classified materials were revealed in the chat, which was conducted on the commercial app Signal.

But Goldberg says they are wrong

In their original reporting about the incident, Goldberg and co-author Harris had refrained from publishing operational details out of consideration for the safety of US soldiers.

However, after government spokesmen publicly disputed the magazine's account and spoke of false reporting, they decided to publish further chat messages including screenshots.

Among these is a message that Hegseth apparently sent just a few hours before a US strike against the Houthi militia in Yemen.

After Goldberg's first story was published in The Atlantic, Hegseth vehemently denied having sent "war plans" and called Goldberg a "deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist whose made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again."

Under Goldberg's leadership, The Atlantic won its first Pulitzer Prize in 2021 and won others in 2022 and 2023, a profile of the journalist in the New York Times on Tuesday revealed.

The Atlantic published that in the message sent at 11:44 am (1544 GMT) on March 15, Hegseth describes the course and schedule of the upcoming military operation - including the take-off times of F-18 fighter jets, drones and planned target attacks.

Hegseth's message included: "Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME."

Other chat members, including US Vice President JD Vance and National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, also reveal the mission's details.

"The first target – their top missile guy – we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend's building and it's now collapsed," Waltz wrote.

This apparently refers to an attack on a member of the Houthi militia.

The Atlantic: Leaked details risked US troops in Yemen

Goldberg and Harris wrote that if such details had fallen into the wrong hands, there could have been serious consequences - especially for the US service personnel involved in the Yemen bombing.

"If this text had been received by someone hostile to American interests - or someone merely indiscreet, and with access to social media - the Houthis would have had time to prepare for what was meant to be a surprise attack on their strongholds," The Atlantic authors wrote.

"The consequences for American pilots could have been catastrophic," they added.

Goldberg and Harris explained that they had asked various members of the US government if they had any objections before publishing the latest news. Most of them did not respond.

Finally, Trump's spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said the information was not a confidential communication but rejected that the material had been published, calling it an "internal and private consultation between high-ranking employees" in which "sensitive information was discussed."

Photo: Screenshot