A reporter was not the only participant in a Signal group chat with Donald Trump’s national security officials who was not suppose to be there.
Joe Kent, a former Army Special Forces soldier, election denier and failed two-time Republican candidate for a congressional seat in southwest Washington, was an active participant in the chat despite awaiting confirmation from the Senate to be Trump’s director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
In the chat, where participants discussed planned strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen, Kent reportedly said, “There is nothing time sensitive driving the timeline. We’ll have the exact same options in a month.”
He also said the Israelis would “take strikes” and “therefore ask us for more support to replenish whatever they use against the Houthis.”
The unredacted texts were published on Wednesday by Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who was mistakenly added to the chat by national security adviser Mike Waltz.
Goldberg wrote that he decided to release the full texts because the White House and cabinet officials insisted under oath that the information was not classified and no war plans were being discussed following the release of his bombshell report on Monday.
“The statements by Hegseth, Gabbard, Ratcliffe, and Trump—combined with the assertions made by numerous administration officials that we are lying about the content of the Signal texts—have led us to believe that people should see the texts in order to reach their own conclusions,” Goldberg wrote in the article disclosing the full texts.
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) told the Willamette Week that Kent’s involvement in the group chat further shows Trump’s officials’ disregard for the country’s national security.
“The recklessness and incompetence of how Trump’s so-called ‘best and brightest’ handled national security information is bad enough when they’re channeling the offhanded attitude of tweeners texting about their plans for spring break,” Wyden said in a statement.
“But the fact they included Joe Kent in this buffoonish behavior only magnifies their dangerous sloppiness and total disregard for intelligence since he hasn’t even been confirmed by the Senate,” he added.
