Classified, or Not Classified?

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The Atlantic published more details from a Signal chat between President Donald Trump’s top advisers that included sensitive details about a military strike in Yemen. The group chat, created by National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, included several high-level administration members, including Vice President J. D. Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and an account called “TG,” the initials of the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. In screenshots published by The Atlantic, the defense secretary messaged information about strike targets and times of attack. Brian Hughes, the spokesman for the National Security Council, confirmed the veracity of the chat.

The report of the security breakdown launched hundreds of memes, and group chats across the country were jokingly renamed “Houthi PC Small Group.” Amid the snickering in Washington, D.C., were also denials—from Gabbard, Hegseth, Ratcliffe, and President Trump—both to reporters and in congressional hearings, that the information in the chat was classified.

We talk with Shane Harris, a national-security reporter for The Atlantic, about how he would characterize the messages and what kind of reverberations to expect from this breach.

The following is a transcript of the episode:

Claudine Ebeid: This is Radio Atlantic. I’m Claudine Ebeid, in for Hanna Rosin. On Monday, The Atlantic reported that our editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was added to a Signal group chat. It was a thread with senior Trump administration officials that included sensitive military information about an attack on Houthi targets in Yemen.

On the day of the attack, March 15, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared operational details two hours before the strikes. And Brian Hughes, the spokesman for the National Security Council, confirmed the veracity of the chat.

Earlier this week, Jeff and Atlantic staff writer Shane Harris were on the show. Since then, administration officials have roundly denied there was any classified information in the thread, including in testimony before Congress.

Ebeid: With me now is Shane Harris, who covers national security. Hi, Shane.

Shane Harris: Hi.

Ebeid: So Shane, we just heard Democratic Senator Mark Warner questioning Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. She and other administration officials have reiterated that there was no classified information in the Signal chat.

What was your reaction to the administration’s response after the original story was published?

Harris: My reaction was Well, if what we’re looking at in these texts isn’t classified information, then maybe I don’t know what classified information is. (Laughs.) I’ve been doing this a while, and look—I mean, I don’t understand their argument here.

This information is presumptively classified, and I don’t think you have to take my word for it. You can actually go look at DOD regulations and intelligence regulations that are available online, and there are helpful tables where in one column it will, you know, list the descriptions of kinds of information and then tell you their relevant classification status, where they should be set.

And there are all kinds of different categories that are implicated in this text chain—in particular, when we’re talking about things like these strike plans that you just heard Senator Warner ask Director Gabbard about that Secretary Hegseth had shared.

You know, if you look just at the government’s own guidelines, the kinds of information that are in here are presumptively classified. So I don’t know where the basis for this claim—I could take a stab at why I think politically they’re making it—but as a legal or a sort of security matter, I don’t know what the foundation for that claim is.

Ebeid: Since that response, The Atlantic published the text of the Signal chat, including information that was previously left out of Monday’s story. So what can you tell me about making that decision?

Harris: Well, there were two things that were driving that for us. One was that, you know, to our surprise, officials—including, you know, the DNI, the CIA director, the White House spokesperson, and ultimately the president himself—weighed in on this on Tuesday, saying that the information in the thread was unclassified. Which was, you know, kind of just say, Okay, well, then is it not considered sensitive? I mean, can this be shared?

And the other thing was that administration officials, including the president, were attacking our journalism. And they were implying or claiming that we were deceiving the public, that if the public saw them, they would see that actually, you know, Jeff and the editors of The Atlantic were lying to them about what they really said.

And so I think that we felt an obligation in that way to show people, Look—this is what is in these messages. You can decide for yourself if we’re being honest with you. And by the way, this is everything that the president says is unclassified and his top advisers say is unclassified.

Ebeid: And, you know, the idea of what counts as classified information and what doesn’t, who determines what’s classified, and when it’s classified—these are not new questions in your line of work. But for people without your background, can you tell us a little bit more about how we should think about these arguments around what it means for something to be classified?

Harris: So think of it this way: Information is classified. By information, I’m talking about—it could be anything, and the government classifies a lot of things. It’s classified according to the damage that would be done if the information were publicly released. So you have different levels of classification.

You have “Secret.” Above that, you have “Top Secret.” Above that, you have something called “Top Secret / SCI.” And then even within that level, you have different, what are called, “compartments” of information. That is essentially information that can only be known by those with a need-to-know who are read into a particular compartment, so the really kind of super-secret stuff, you can think of it.

And those labels are put on pieces of information to let people in the government who are handling this information know how to handle it, how much to restrict it, who’s allowed to see it. It’s essentially like a coding system that, again, is based on the damage that would be done if it were known outside of these closed circles of people who need to know it.

So who decides what information is classified? Senior-level government officials often have that authority. Secretaries of defense, of state have what’s called “original classification authority.” Pete Hegseth can mark something classified if he wants to. He can also begin the process to declassify something if he wants to do that.

And this really is, I mean, usually something that is done on an agency-by-agency or department-by-department basis. So the Defense Department kind of categorizes all of its classified information. And the CIA does the same for its classified information. And it really, it’s just—I mean, when we talk about something being classified, usually what it really means at base is: It’s sensitive. It’s information that the agency doesn’t want a lot of people to know about or doesn’t want people outside the kind of cleared circle to know about. That’s probably the best way to think about it.

Ebeid: And you saw the texts. Based on what you know, is there a category that you would have put those texts? A level of classification?

Harris: I would’ve presumed they were top secret, which is not to say that that’s the most most secret, but I would’ve presumed that they were at least top secret, because you’re talking about information about a military attack that’s about to happen.

You know, Hegseth is sharing things like the time that F-18s are going to launch, when they will be releasing their weapons, what the follow-on attacks will be, by what kind of aircraft, by what kind of weapons. This is sensitive information because if this fell into the hands of an adversary, the adversary is going to know how to try to avoid the attack or potentially launch a counterattack, which then, that could also jeopardize the lives of U.S. forces, who are already, you know, flying into harm’s way because the Houthis have antiaircraft capabilities. They can try to shoot these planes down, and we know that.

So why would you want information like this to be in an unsecured channel, where it could fall into the hands of somebody who could, you know, give it to your adversary? And obviously, that didn’t happen here, but this case kind of exemplifies why they shouldn’t be using Signal to begin with. If they’d been having these conversations on a secure government system, it would be impossible to have added Jeffrey Goldberg to that chat.

So this is why Signal is not well suited for sharing this kind of information. Talking about things in a more broad sense or unclassified or not highly sensitive information? Sure. And lots of officials do that. And there are instances in which that is fine and condoned, but I have yet to find anybody who can tell me that this kind of information is fine to share in Signal.

I just—I think it’s not. And if these officials have made a determination that it is, I think they owe the public an explanation for that. Instead, what they’ve done is insist it’s unclassified, which implies it’s not terribly sensitive, and they’ve attacked us for reporting about it.

Ebeid: So this isn’t the first time we’ve had a scandal around sensitive information. We’ve, of course, you know, had the Hillary Clinton email saga. There’s that Donald Trump was indicted over classified documents in Florida before the case was dropped after his election. Could you put this breach in the context of those past episodes?

Harris: Yeah. I think if you take the Hillary Clinton email server kind of at one end of severity, which is to say kind of a lower end—it’s not insignificant; I want to emphasize that—and then you put the Donald Trump taking classified documents to Mar-a-Lago, for which he’s indicted, at the high end of severity, because here we’re talking about boxes of paper classified documents in an unsecured place, lots of people milling about, I think that this Signal chat falls somewhere in the middle of that. And maybe closer to the Hillary Clinton email side.

And the reason I say that is because, look: If Jeff had not been in the room, it’s possible that these would’ve been the only people who knew about it. So that’s to some degree, as in to say, these officials—who are all clear to have this information, by the way—there’s no question that they’re allowed to see what was in the room.

It’s a question of the way it was transmitted, and the risk that goes with that. There is the obvious risk that, you know, someone could be in the room that wasn’t supposed to be there. But there’s another risk that we haven’t talked about, which is that the devices themselves, the phones on which Signal is running for these 17 or so officials, could those phones have been compromised by a foreign government or by a criminal government?

Ebeid: Right. Could they be hacked?

Harris: Could they be hacked? Exactly. And if they were hacked, that means somebody could theoretically be reading the messages as if they were standing there holding the phone themselves.

And this is not theoretical. The government, just in recent days, has put out guidance to people who are using Signal, including officials who are using it, warning them about the vulnerabilities that Signal has to foreign-intelligence services. And there are questions about, was Signal running on these officials’ government phones, which we would hope have a pretty high degree of security, or their personal phones, which are under their personal recognizance that might not be as secure as a government phone? So that, I think, tilts it a little more towards the severe side, but I think it’s in the middle of those two scandals.

Ebeid: What consequences do you expect for the officials who are on the group chat? Actually, maybe I should ask, given your years of experience, how would you typically expect an administration to respond to this kind of situation?

Harris: The typical response to this would be—I think it’d be twofold.

One, I think the officials would be humiliated. They’d be highly embarrassed, and if they were thinking about their reputations would probably try to come out and maybe try and do something to soften the blow, but essentially take responsibility for it. I would expect in any other administration, the national security adviser probably would’ve offered the president his resignation, and the president might have taken it.

The other thing that would happen here is that there would be an investigation, and probably the FBI would do that investigation. The reason for that is: Although this is a very novel example of a classified leak—putting aside that the government says it’s not classified—it’s still a leak. It’s still a leak, and when there is sensitive information that falls into the hands of people who aren’t supposed to have it, the FBI usually investigates that, particularly if—you know, it’s publicly known in this case. But the agencies in question whose information was implicated, what they would normally do is refer that to the FBI and say: We’d like you to investigate this and find out how it happened.

And then, of course, part of that investigation would be to determine whether or not there are criminal charges that should be filed. I don’t think that’s likely to happen in this case. I don’t think it’d be likely to happen, by the way, in another administration. The law—this is a strange case. I don’t imagine anyone would be prosecuted, but they’re certainly not gonna be prosecuted in the Trump administration.

Ebeid: There is a lawsuit now filed against administration officials for, you know, violating federal recordkeeping laws. Do you think something could come of that?

Harris: Now, that’s possible. I mean, there’s a question of standing. You know, does the plaintiff have standing to bring it? But it’s a really good point. It’s worth just dwelling on a second. There are two records laws that are implicated here: the Federal Records Act and the Presidential Records Act.

And in a nutshell, what they require is that if people are going to use a text-messaging service—or any electronic service, for that matter—that’s not an official one, that’s not, like, a .gov service, they’ve gotta make a backup of those communications if they are pertaining to official matters. CIA Director John Ratcliffe actually was testifying earlier this week and mentioned this very fact as a way of defending the CIA’s use of Signal—or what he characterized as the CIA’s use of Signal—which he portrayed as widespread.

I’m not really sure that’s true, but he accurately said that you have to keep a record of these messages if you’re sending them. So there might be some legs to a lawsuit that alleges these officials were violating those records laws.

[Music]

Ebeid: More with Shane Harris after the break.

[Break]

Ebeid: You know, Shane, I think I’ve received more text messages—and I should say, messages in Signal—about this story than anything in a very long time.

Harris: Do people want to make a “Houthi PC small group” chat room too?

Ebeid: Oh man, let me tell you, all my groups have been renamed this week. But I can’t imagine what kind of responses you’re getting. What are you hearing from people in the intelligence community?

Harris: I think people—what I’m hearing is a mix of people being appalled, outraged, a lot of, If I had done this, I’d be fired. If I had done this, I would be investigated and indicted. There’s a real sense of anger, I think, at what people see as the hypocrisy of these officials and sort of having a “fine for me and not for thee” attitude when it comes to what is ultimately just a really reckless use of technology. I really don’t think there’s any way around that. And I think a real sense, too, among people, including people who don’t work in the government, who I’ve talked to—a real feeling that nothing will happen as a result of this and that no one will be held accountable and that that’s a real shame.

Ebeid: And you know, obviously, like, we’re focusing on this one text conversation that happened to include Jeffrey Goldberg. I mean, would it be reasonable for us to assume that this is not the first and only conversation that’s happening like this in Signal or other group-chat environments?

Harris: I think that’s reasonable, and I presume it’s not the only one. And the reason I do is because in this whole conversation that we’re watching them have, not one person says: Hey—should we be doing this on Signal? Why did you add him to this group? Wait, why are we doing this on a text thread?

Everyone behaves as if this is perfectly normal. And to my knowledge, at least in previous administrations, it is not normal. That suggests, to me, that these people have either done this before or know people have done it before.

Ebeid: We have been very, you know, in the last couple of days around this story and even in this conversation, we’re very focused on what this means internally in the United States for us. A couple of weeks ago, you were on the show, talking with our host, Hanna Rosin, about this administration’s about-face from European allies and what kind of effect that has on the intelligence community and sharing of information between the U.S. and countries that we’ve traditionally thought of as allies. What kind of fallout could we see with intelligence sharing with other countries after something like this?

Harris: I think this is likely to confirm for our allies that they were right to be skeptical about this administration’s ability to properly handle sensitive information, and that they will start pulling back accordingly.

I think they already have been. And look—in the two days since this story has broken, I’ve had a chance to talk to officials in some allied countries. They’re appalled. They can’t believe this is happening, and they are very candid in saying, you know, This is essentially why we have to rethink whether we can trust this administration.

And you know, what’s also so striking to me in some of these conversations is: As aghast as they are, they’re not actually surprised. It’s not that they can’t believe that anyone would do this. It’s more that they think that if anyone were going to do it, it would be people in this administration.

Because there’s a track record. There has been since the inauguration, and there’s a track record in Trump’s first term. So you know, people are also—you know, like all of us, they’re kind of laughing. I mean, it’s just—there’s a deep comic thread to this story. (Laughs.) No doubt.

Ebeid: So many memes.

Harris: So many memes. The memes have been amazing. It’s been one of the best parts. But they’re also taking it really seriously because now they have an actual example, proof that there is information being bandied about in this way. And, you know, I was talking to someone just recently, you know, who said, So are we to assume that you’re gonna take the intelligence that we give you from our country, and you’re also gonna be sharing it with people over Signal? Because that’s not okay.

Ebeid: Right. Okay. So that’s the situation with historic allies. What about America’s adversaries? What kind of conversations do you think are happening right now in North Korea and China?

Harris: I think, you know, again, aside from the comedy of it, look: We have these individuals—particularly, the very senior members of the administration, the DNI, the CIA director, the secretary of defense, and to include their senior aides—already are presumably at the top of the target list for foreign intelligence services to try and get information on them, compromise their electronic devices.

What I’m afraid this episode will show to those foreign spy agencies is that work of spying on our officials might be easier than they had thought it would be. And I don’t think we should presume for a minute that all of the phones that were used in this Signal chain are a hundred percent secure.

I’m not saying I know them not to be, but I would not presume that they are. I think that there is kind of a pattern of sloppy behavior by senior members of the administration with how they take briefings, with people they have around them, and whether those people have been appropriately cleared, the kinds of communication systems that they’re using.

I don’t think we should view this Signal group as a one-off. I think that this is illustrative of a pattern of behavior and practice that we have seen since President Trump took office, in January. You know, and we’ve talked before and I’ve written before about, you know, the counterintelligence and security risks that happen or get created when people from the DOGE service start barging into agencies and mucking about in computer systems that they don’t really understand, and the way that they can expose information or make it more vulnerable.

So I think about that and other threads that I’m kind of pulling on and say: The way to think about the “Houthi PC small group” Signal scandal is as part of a whole pattern of behavior, not as something that happened in isolation.

Ebeid: Shane, thanks so much for joining me today.

Harris: Thank you for having me, Claudine.

[Music]

Ebeid: This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Jinae West and edited by Kevin Townsend. It was engineered by Rob Smierciak. Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.

If you like what you hear on Radio Atlantic, remember: You can support our work and the work of all Atlantic journalists when you subscribe to The Atlantic at TheAtlantic.com/podsub. That’s TheAtlantic.com/podsub.

Hanna Rosin is the host of Radio Atlantic. I’m Claudine Ebeid, executive producer of Atlantic audio. Thank you for listening.