Signal Chat Leak Case Is Closed, White House Says

National security adviser Mike Waltz has said he is responsible for adding The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief to a sensitive discussion.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks to reporters in Washington on March 31, 2025. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

The White House is no longer looking into the episode involving a magazine editor being added to a sensitive discussion involving top government officials, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on March 31.

“This case has been closed here at the White House,” Leavitt told reporters in a gaggle.

Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, was added to a Signal group chat in mid-March involving Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, national security adviser Mike Waltz, and other top officials. The discussion centered on strikes being carried out in the Middle East.

After The Atlantic revealed what had happened, Waltz said he took responsibility for adding Goldberg and said he did not know how Goldberg’s number ended up on his phone.

Waltz has also said he does not know Goldberg. The journalist said over the weekend, “That’s simply not true.” A spokesman for the National Security Council said earlier on Monday that Waltz “does not know Jeffrey Goldberg and does not recall ever meeting him.”

Leavitt said that “as the president has made it very clear, Mike Waltz continues to be an important part of his national security team.”

“There have been steps taken to ensure that something like that can obviously never happen again moving forward,” she said, without providing details. “And the president and Mike Waltz and his entire national security team have been working together very well, if you look at how much safer the United States of America is because of the leadership of this team.”

Waltz recently told Fox News that “I built the group” and that “my job is to make sure everything’s coordinated.”

Waltz said that he didn’t see Goldberg in the group.

“The person I thought was on there was never on there,” he said.

The White House said earlier in March that Elon Musk, a special government employee who has been advising President Donald Trump, would help with the investigation.

“Elon Musk has offered to put his technical experts on this to figure out how this number was inadvertently added to the chat, again to take responsibility and ensure this can never happen again,” she said at the time.

The White House has not committed to making the results of the investigation public.

Lawmakers have called on the Trump administration to share details of how Goldberg was added, with some saying Hegseth, Waltz, or both should be fired.

Trump has backed the officials while also saying he thought the administration would not use Signal often moving forward.