Rosen among chorus demanding hearings after Trump team accidentally leaked war plans to journalist

Condemning it as a “reckless handling of highly sensitive information” and “an inexcusable failure that has weakened our national security and put American lives at risk,” Nevada Democratic U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was among those Monday calling for hearings and accountability following a bizarre report about military plans being leaked by high-ranking Trump administration officials.

A group chat that included Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, national security adviser Michael Waltz and several other Trump administration cabinet members and officials was formed earlier this month to discuss military action against Houthi forces based in Yemen, whose attacks have been disrupting shipping in the area.

The group chat, on the Signal app, somehow also included The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, as Goldberg explained in a story published in the Atlantic Monday.

Goldberg, also the regular host of Washington Week on PBS, suspected the text chain wasn’t authentic, but perhaps some sort of disinformation campaign designed to mislead the press and/or others. 

“But if it was a hoax, the quality of mimicry and the level of foreign-policy insight were impressive,” Goldberg wrote.

One of the texts attributed to Hegseth indicated the first attacks would be in Yemen at 1:45 p.m. eastern time on March 15. 

“If this Signal chat was real, I reasoned, Houthi targets would soon be bombed,” Goldberg wrote. “At about 1:55, I checked X and searched Yemen. Explosions were then being heard across Sanaa, the capital city.”

Goldberg subsequently sought and received confirmation from a National Security Council spokesperson that the group chat to which somehow he had been added “appears to be an authentic message chain.”

The NSC is “reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” the spokesman told Goldberg.

“Using an unclassified communications platform to discuss classified military operations and being careless enough to add someone without the proper clearance is a dangerous level of incompetence,” Rosen said in her statement Monday.

“Congress needs to immediately hold hearings to get answers about how such a thing can happen, and we must hold those involved in this major national security breach accountable,” Rosen said.

Rosen was one of several members of Congress, of both parties, expressing a mix of outrage and disbelief at the security breach. 

Nevada Democratic Rep. Dina Titus on social media also blasted the leak, saying “Stupid is as stupid does,” and asking “What other non-government officials have been included on similar group chats?”

And Nevada Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Matso on social media described the security breach as an act of “unacceptable incompetence” that could have had “catastrophic consequences.”

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, however, brushed off the blunder Monday, telling The Hill that Waltz, who evidently was the person who added Goldberg to the text chain, should not be disciplined.

“Apparently an inadvertent phone number made it onto that thread. They’re gonna track that down and make sure that doesn’t happen again,” Johnson said.

Meanwhile, “It is worth noting,” Goldberg wrote in his story, “that Donald Trump, as a candidate for president (and as president), repeatedly and vociferously demanded that Hillary Clinton be imprisoned for using a private email server for official business when she was secretary of state.”