Donald Trump has shifted the blame for a blunder in which details of U.S. military operations in Yemen were leaked to a journalist on a secret group chat to a “lower level” White House employee that worked for his national security advisor Michael Waltz.
In an interview with Newsmax, which aired on Tuesday evening, Trump offered a theory on how Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, had ended up on a Signal group chat in which the top-secret plans were discussed.
“What it was, we believe, is somebody that was on the line with permission, somebody that was with Mike Waltz, worked for Mike waltz at a lower level, had, I guess, Goldberg’s number or called through the app, and somehow this guy ended up on the call,” the president said.
It comes after Waltz himself took “full responsibility” for allowing Goldberg to gain access to the discussions. “I take full responsibility. I built the group,” he told Fox News’s Ingraham Angle on Tuesday, in an interview that aired shortly before Trump’s.
“It’s embarrassing. We’re going to get to the bottom of it.”
Speaking to Newsmax, Trump reiterated claims by other senior officials that there was no classified information shared in the group chat.
“No it wasn’t classified, as I understand it. There was no classified information,” he said. “There was no problem, and the attack was a tremendous success.
“So only by what I’ve been told – I wasn’t involved in it – but I was told by and the other people weren’t involved at all. But I feel very comfortable.”
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