The fallout continues after news surfaced earlier this week that the nation’s top defense leaders included a journalist in a group chat about plans to attack Houthi targets in Yemen. Gov. Mike DeWine, who served on the Senate Intelligence Committee for eleven of the twelve years he was in the U.S. Senate, said he wants to see more facts come out about the controversy.
The White House has acknowledged Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of The Atlantic, was mistakenly added to the chat group by Mike Waltz, President Trump's National Security Advisor. The chat discussed specific targets, dates, times, and other details. White House Spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said the chat contained no classified information.
But DeWine said in his experience, discussions among top defense officials are usually handled much more securely.
“Normally, when there’s a discussion, there is a safe place, a SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) where people go," DeWine said.
"I think this has to be investigated. I think we have to get all of the facts out," DeWine said. "I have every confidence that the facts will get out and people will make their own judgment about that. This is not what we would normally expect to see happen at all."
"I think we're very, very fortunate that the the journalist did not disclose the particulars, the facts," DeWine said when asked about the scandal during a forum at the Columbus Metropolitan Club. "At least what we know about, if they've been disclosed in real time, that could certainly could have threatened U.S. forces who were involved in that activity. So I think it's a very, very good thing that he did not do that."
Goldberg said he began to realize it might be a legitimate chat among defense leaders after he learned information given on that thread aligned with timelines for a U.S. attack on Houthis in Yemen. Goldberg made the public aware of the situation in a story in The Atlantic on Monday.
Democrats have been calling for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. But he also has said the information in the chat was not classified.
