The breach of chat of the cabinet is shaken Washington

JD Vance, the memory writer who became vice-president, thought that air strikes against the Houthis in Yemen were “an error”. Pete Hegseth, Fox News host who became a defense secretary, pleaded for action. “I think we should go,” he said.

The two men expressed their disdain for the American allies in Europe just as ardently in private as the administration of Donald Trump projects in public. “I just hate to jump Europe again,” said Vance.

These exchanges between the senior officials of the firm and the national security officials normally take place in the situation room of the White House or other highly secure communication lines.

But this one between more than a dozen senior officials before the American military operation of this month against the militia group supported by Iran occurred on a Signal cat It was shared with Jeffrey Goldberg, editor -in -chief of Atlantic magazine.

The report of the electronic deliberations published on Monday, which were confirmed as authentic by the White House, rocked Washington from Trump in minutes.

The reported cat – called “Small Group Houthi PC” – has represented one of the most blatant national security offenses in recent United States history, although it is not clear if it will never be investigated by federal law organizations, including the Ministry of Justice and the FBI, which Trump tried to submit his thumb.

The MJ refused to comment on the violation. The FBI referred any question to the Pentagon, which did not answer a request for comments.

He also pointed out to what extent Vance is positioned internally foreign policy Discussions as the most faithful isolationist, to the point of dissident in private with Trump’s first big military strike.

And this has definitely shown the depth of doubts about Europe in the minds of Trump senior officials at a time when they question NATO’s value and move to launch a transatlantic trade war.

One of the main reserves of officials on the strike of Houthis was that it would allow European economies of freeride off the coast of American energy to release shipping routes from the Red Sea. “I fully share your European freeloading disgust, it’s pathetic”, ” Hegseth said in response to Vance.

Trump’s only comment on the exchange was to say that he knew “nothing” of the violation, and nothing indicated that anyone who would be held responsible.

But the Democrats quickly called for resignations, appointing Hegseth, as well as Mike Waltz, the national security advisor who accidentally invited the journalist to the cat, or Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence who, this month, declared that the “unauthorized liberation of classified information is a violation of the law and will be treated as such”.

“The heads must ride. It is one of the most stupid security violations in history, and it suggests a broader scheme of potentially criminal behavior that endangers in danger,” wrote Don Beyer, a member of the Democrat Congress of Virginia, on X.

Some legal experts have agreed that the discussion and disclosure of sensitive military plans were potentially illegal.

“If this national defense information is knowingly transmitted to a support that is not sure, it could be a violation” of the 1917 espionage law, said Deborah Curtis, associated with Arnold & Porter.

“The signal is a private encryption from start to finish (messaging service),” she added. “It is not an American medium approved by the government to have such a conversation … Above all, you do not necessarily know who is (other) end of the application.”

Michael O’Hanlon, director of research on foreign policy at the Brooker Institution Think Tank, said that the episode had revealed “remarkable negligence” among the senior officials who “should have known”.

“You have had the majority of the best national security team, if not practically the totally, accomplice of this communication chain, and none of them had the wisdom to close it. At least, they should all go to the woods. And if they do not apologize for that, then it speaks in a way to a casualness and a rider who scares me.”

The Republicans of Capitol Hill tried to minimize the incident, suggesting that it was nothing more than a lesson to learn for the future and that the debate itself was healthy.

“They will find this and make sure that it does not happen again,” Mike Johnson, the president of the room, told journalists.

He added: “What you saw, I think, they are high -level officials who did their job, did it well and perform a plan with precision.”

“It looks like a huge vision,” said John Cornyn, Texas senator, another group of journalists, seeming a little more disturbed. “It looks like someone dropped the ball.”

For Trump’s criticisms, the negligence of discussing classified information will not be surprising since the president was prosecuted for having pretended to be poorly managed the sensitive national security documents stored in Mar-A-Lago after his first mandate in a federal case which was abandoned after his victory in 2024.

Despite this, signal cat revelations on Monday sparked a new indignation series that Trump and his team will find it difficult to brush.

“What this incident reflects is an insruption and inconceivable neglect on national security information,” said Emily Berman, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center.

“This does not make it more likely that the president’s national security team and the vice-president were prosecuted,” she added.