Four lingering questions about Trump officials’ Signal chat

For the past 48 hours, top White House officials have faced questions from lawmakers and the press about how a journalist came to join a sensitive group chat for an upcoming military operation – and why President Donald Trump’s national security team was sharing sensitive information in an unsecure manner.

The Atlantic first reported details of the group chat on the platform Signal after its editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was added to it. He followed the thread as top Trump administration officials discussed upcoming military strikes against the Houthis in Yemen.

The Atlantic then on Wednesday published the entire text thread that showed the detailed and potentially classified rundown for a March air raids.

While the thread appears to have contained sensitive information, there is still much that remains unknown. Here are four lingering questions regarding so-called “Signal-gate”.

The Trump administration maintains the information shared in the chat was not classified.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that “no war plans” were discussed on the chat. Instead, she characterised the information shared as “sensitive policy discussions”.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told lawmakers during a congressional hearing that the Signal chat was “candid and sensitive”, though “no classified information was shared”.

But…