‘National Security Was Compromised’: Fox News Anchor John Roberts Calls Leaked War Plans to The Atlantic a ‘BFD’

Fox News anchor John Roberts reported that “national security was compromised” when US military war plans were shared with Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg via Signal.

Trump National Security Adviser Mike Waltz accidentally added Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, to a group chat where the Principals Committee – the heads of the top American national security agencies — discussed plans to strike Houthi rebels in Yemen earlier this month.

Goldberg’s report of how he learned about a planned bombing of Houthi rebels in Yemen over the weekend was described by former CIA Director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta as a “very serious mistake” and a “serious blunder” during a Monday afternoon appearance on CNN in which he also said people should be fired.

Roberts initially hedged on the story, saying, “It’s not bad from the perspective that the operation against the Houthis that was launched on March the 15th was compromised at all. What’s bad about it is that there were 18 people who are on this text chain who are highly ranking administration officials.”

Later he flatly said, “National security was compromised from the standpoint that you did invite an outsider who doesn’t have top secret security clearance into the group but uh… nothing else unto what happened.”

“But I’ll tell you, uh… this would count as a BFD according to people that I’ve talked to, and it will likely be looked into,” Roberts concluded, to which Bill Hemmer called it a “misfire.”

Hemmer: So, let’s bring in John Roberts, my colleague, co-host of America Reports. I don’t know who was on this text thread, John. It doesn’t sound good. What have we learned about it?

Roberts: Well, let’s just put it this way, it’s not bad from the perspective that the operation against the Houthis that was launched on March the 15th was compromised at all. What’s bad about it is that there were 18 people who are on this text chain who are highly ranking administration officials. National security like the vice president, Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, the director of national intelligence, the CIA director, Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, Michael Waltz, the National Security Advisor. and apparently Jeffrey Goldberg who is the editor in chief of The Atlantic magazine i would think that they’re probably are worse people that you could text your secret plans to uh… but uh… it appears that Goldberg is acted responsibly here in writing this article and while he outs a lot of the process of what happened he did not specifically publish the war plans as they apparently were transmitted to him by Pete Hegseth the morning of the attacks against the Houthis.

Hemmer: Okay, let me come back to that. Roll this bite from the former defense secretary, Leon Panetta, is what he said about it, John.

Panetta: 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.

Hemmer: we’ll see if that happens or not signal is one of these apps where you’re supposed to be able to message someone in secret i don’t know how secret it is john in here now private it might be but a lot of reporters in washington use it and a lot of members of government use it as well

Roberts: Well, do they not? Well, I’ve talked to some folks in the intelligence community, retired from the intelligence community, who believe that signal still is pretty much protected, like the Russians and the Chinese have not hacked into it just yet. So it’s likely that the communications between this group were secure. It’s just the idea that you accidentally invite into the group the editor-in-chief of a magazine that’s not particularly kind to the Trump administration. uh… national security was compromised from the standpoint that you did invite an outsider who doesn’t have top secret security clearance into the group but uh… nothing else unto what happened but i’ll tell you uh… this would count as a BFD according to people that i’ve talked to and it will likely be looked into

Hemmer: What we call a misfire. If you could take it back, you would. We’ll see. John, thanks. Nice to see you this afternoon.

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