After the Trump administration confirmed a text thread, reportedly detailing war plans accidentally included a journalist from the Atlantic, some Maryland leaders are calling for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz to be punished.
According to Joshua Panas and Jacob Gardenswartz with Scripps News Group, an article published by editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg detailed a request he received on the encrypted app "Signal" from Mike Waltz.
Signal is a direct messaging app used for group chats, and phone or video calls.
The app uses end-to-end call and messaging encryption that supposedly prevents third-parties from listening in on calls or viewing content.
Signal does this by scrambling messages, allowing only the sender and recipient to decipher them.
RELATED: What is Signal, the chat app used by US officials to share attack plans?
Goldberg accepted the request, and was added to a group chat named "Houthi PC small group" with others including Hegseth, Waltz, Vice President JD Vance, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
According to Goldberg, plans for strikes on the Iran-backed Houthi rebels were discussed.
Goldberg says messages from Hegseth "contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing."
Since the report became public, Democrats have questioned Hegseth and Waltz's actions.
On Tuesday, Marylad Congressman Johnny Olszewski called for an investigation into the Trump administration's use of messaging apps.
Olszewski said the group's actions were "reckless and seriously calls into question the experience, qualifications and judgment of those leading our national security apparatus."
"Our enemies are trying everyday to infiltrate the communications of those involved in this group chat. Using open source apps to discuss military targets and timing puts the lives of our men and women in uniform at grave risk. I am calling for a swift, serious and substantive investigation— one that quickly holds everyone involved fully accountable for one of the most shocking security failures in decades,” Congressman Olszewski said.
Senator Chris Van Hollen went further by calling on Hegseth and Waltz to resign, over what he considered a "gross disregard for the handling of classified information."
"If any other federal officials had been involved in this grave of a security breach, they would have been fired at once. For the safety of our armed forces and for the security of our nation, I call on Secretary Hegseth and National Security Advisor Waltz to resign immediately,” said Senator Van Hollen.
President Donald Trump addressed the controversy Wednesday, backing his Defense Secretary.
READ MORE: 'Hegseth is doing a great job': Trump responds to Signal chat fallout
"Hegseth is doing a great job," President Trump said. "He had nothing to do with this."
Trump suggested the issue may have stemmed from a flaw in the app.
"I don't know that Signal works," he said. "I think Signal could be defective."
According to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, DOGE head Elon Musk is investigating how Goldberg got access to the chat.
"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 that this can never happen again," said Leavitt.
