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The Signalgate scandal, which implicated Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, as a participant in a private Signal chat discussing a potential U.S. airstrike on Yemen, has received an unexpected explanation.
An internal investigation by the White House IT department revealed that the leak was not the result of malicious intent, but rather a mishap caused by the iPhone’s predictive contact suggestions. It was discovered that Goldberg’s number had been mistakenly saved on an official’s phone under the name of another contact several months prior to the incident.
The error stemmed from a chain of coincidental events beginning in October 2024, during the election campaign. At that time, Goldberg sent a query to Trump’s campaign team regarding an upcoming article critical of the former president’s attitude toward veterans. The message, including Goldberg’s signature and phone number, was forwarded to Waltz in plain text.
According to sources, Waltz’s iPhone automatically matched Goldberg’s number with the contact card of then-press secretary Brian Hughes. As a result, the number was saved on Waltz’s device under Hughes’s name. So when Waltz created a Signal group chat in March 2025 to discuss the situation with the Houthis in Yemen and attempted to add Hughes, he inadvertently included Goldberg.
The leak of military planning details on an unsecured platform sparked concern among Trump’s inner circle, but the president was reportedly more incensed that his advisor even had Goldberg’s number — a journalist from a publication he had frequently lambasted. Nevertheless, Trump refrained from firing Waltz, deeming such a move a concession to the press and instead expressed support for his aide.
Following the incident, a forensic analysis was conducted on Waltz’s phone. It confirmed that Goldberg’s number had been stored due to the iPhone’s “contact updating” algorithm, which suggests merging contact entries based on message history.
Within the Signal group, participants had discussed operational details concerning strikes on Yemeni insurgents. Despite the sensitive nature of the conversation, the Trump administration had officially sanctioned the use of Signal for work purposes, citing the lack of an alternative real-time communication platform — a policy dating back to the presidential transition period.
In an interview with Fox News immediately after the incident, Waltz claimed he had never spoken to Goldberg and speculated that the number had “somehow made its way” into his contacts. However, Goldberg later confirmed to reporters that he did know Waltz and had spoken with him before.
The scandal erupted just after Trump began his second term in office. Amid the fallout, Waltz accompanied the president aboard Marine One, a gesture widely interpreted within the White House as a public display of the president’s continued trust.
The episode served as another stark reminder of the vulnerabilities created by the absence of a centralized, secure communication system for national security personnel. While the internal investigation found no evidence of intentional wrongdoing, it highlighted how a seemingly trivial contact mix-up could escalate into a high-level security threat.
Notably, just days after the Signalgate episode, Waltz became embroiled in yet another controversy — this time involving the use of a personal Gmail account for official correspondence. A staffer had used the unsecured email service to exchange sensitive information with other officials regarding military positions and armaments, raising further concerns about operational security.
