Fox News Chief National Security Correspondent Hasn’t Been On Air Since War Plans Leak Story Broke
Fox News
Correction 03/25: After publication of this story, Mediaite learned that Fox News chief national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin was away on vacation Monday, when the war plans story first broke. She returned to work Tuesday at 11 a.m. and, as of this writing, has not been on the air since. Our initial story has been corrected to reflect Griffin’s absence on Monday. Mediaite regrets the error, and the publication of this article before receiving comment from Fox News.
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Fox News chief national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin has been with the network for over 25 years, providing frontline reporting from locations around the globe, including Jerusalem and Moscow. She’s a Harvard alumna with decades of experience and vast sources throughout the military and intelligence communities. So why isn’t she on air reporting on how the Pentagon’s plans to strike the Houthi rebels were leaked to a journalist who was mistakenly added to a group chat?
The political world was stunned Monday by a report from Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, describing how National Security Adviser Mike Waltz had accidentally added him in a group chat on the encrypted messaging app Signal that included the “principals committee,” top level national security agency officials in President Donald Trump’s administration, as they discussed war plans and messaging strategies related to striking the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen earlier this month.
According to Goldberg’s bombshell report, besides Waltz the chat apparently included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, “and someone identified only as ‘S M,’ which I took to stand for [Homeland Security advisor and White House deputy chief of staff] Stephen Miller,” and other national security officials, intelligence agents, and so on. Goldberg’s name showed up in the chat as “JG,” he wrote.
In his article, Goldberg excoriated Waltz and the other participants in the chat for the “shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation,” like debating operational details for the upcoming strike against the Houthis, discussing other top secret information about U.S. intelligence and military plans and capabilities — besides the problematic lack of caution that led to his number being included in the first place.
Griffin has tweeted numerous times since Goldberg’s story broke, often directly contradicting claims made by Trump, Hegseth, Waltz, or other White House officials — and sometimes even her own Fox News colleagues — in defense of the Signal chat. Besides retweeting other journalists around the country who are covering the story, Griffin has also added her own reporting, often including links and screenshots in support.
Her first tweet about the story came a little more than an hour after it was published on The Atlantic’s website, and shared a link to the article along with a caption that read, “The Trump administration does not deny this Signal group chat about the war planning for the Yemen strikes is real. Trump’s top national security advisers added reporter @JeffreyGoldberg @TheAtlantic to the war planning text chain on non-government social media app, perhaps breaking secrecy laws. Read this shocking story below.”
She soon followed up with another tweet with statements from the National Security Council and Vance’s office. By Monday evening, she was reporting on the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman saying classified hearings would likely happen soon on this matter.
On Tuesday, Griffin tweeted additional reporting, specifically countering claims from Trump administration officials that Signal was “secure.”
But on the Fox News Channel, Griffin was nowhere to be seen. A search of channel transcripts on Snapstream found no mentions of any version of her name (searches included “griffin” “griffen” “jennifer” and “jen”).
Goldberg’s article first went live at 12:06 pm ET on Monday. Griffin was on vacation Monday, but returned to work at 11 am ET Tuesday. Other Fox News reporters and on-air personalities have covered the Signal chat story since it broke, but Griffin has not yet been seen.
