'Serious blunder': Former defense secretary demands firings after war plans gaffe

Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta vehemently asserted Monday that the person who created the Signal chat revealing war plans about an attack on Houthi terrorists to a journalist with The Atlantic should be fired.

Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, wrote in a stunning article of his inadvertent inclusion in a Signal messaging chat revealing war plans about an imminent strike on Yemen. Goldberg wrote that he believed top officials on the chat included National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, Secretary of State Pete Hegseth, and Vice President J.D. Vance, among others.

At first, Goldberg thought the messaging chain was fake, but Panetta, who served in several Democratic administrations including as Defense Secretay under President Barack Obama, told CNN, "there's no question this is legitimate."

Panetta continued by saying the officials included on the chain were "not paying attention to" the fact that they had "included somebody on the outside who has no business knowing about this information. There was a mistake here. Somebody on the Atlantic got the most sensitive emails you can imagine at the federal level. That is a serious blunder. It has to be investigated, and somebody frankly, needs to get fired."

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CNN anchor Boris Sanchez asked Panetta who he thought that should be.

"Whoever put that chain together," Panetta declared. "Somebody put that name on a list, and whoever that was deserves to be fired."

Sanchez asked, "I wonder, secretary, what you think of the use of Signal the app as a way of conducting these conversations? is that, in itself, appropriate?"

"I think, depending on the level of security involved — and I'm assuming it's a high level of security or they wouldn't use it — that it can be a legitimate way to try to have that conversation regarding war plans. But, what you have to do is make certain that whoever is on that chain has a high level of security clearance and has a right to know the information that is part of the discussion. And that certainly not true for Jeffrey Goldberg."

Read The Atlantic article here and watch the clip below or at this link.