Fox News’ chief national security correspondent broke ranks with many on her network Wednesday, stating that the Trump administration’s Signal chat leak involving Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was “more egregious” than previously portrayed.
The controversy stems from a group chat initiated by National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, in which Hegseth shared sensitive operational details about a U.S. airstrike on Houthi militants in Yemen. The chat, which astonishingly included The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, contained time-sensitive military strike information—an exposure that has drawn bipartisan alarm.
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While some conservative media figures and Trump officials have dismissed the severity of the breach, Fox’s Jennifer Griffin took a sharply different tone in a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter). Drawing on input from current and former defense officials, Griffin argued that what Hegseth shared wasn’t just inappropriate—it may have been dangerously revealing.
Griffin wrote that although some experts debated whether the term “war plans” applied, “what was shared may have been FAR MORE sensitive given the operational details and time stamps ahead of the operation, which could have placed US military pilots in harm’s way.”
She specified that the details included exact strike times and mentions of specific military assets: “F18s, MQ9 Reapers and Tomahawks.” Such information, Griffin noted, is typically transmitted through secure, classified channels and labeled “secret, no forn”—meaning it must not be shared with foreign nationals or via insecure platforms.
(Tom Williams/Getty Images)
“Attack orders or attack sequence puts the joint force directly and immediately at risk,” one former senior defense official told Griffin, warning that such leaks could enable enemies to reposition targets or ramp up counterattacks against U.S. personnel.
Griffin underscored the distinction between strategic war planning and what was leaked: “This kind of real-time operational information is more sensitive than ‘war plans,’ which makes this lapse more egregious,” she wrote, citing two former senior defense officials.
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She also dismissed Hegseth’s public minimization of the breach, stating bluntly: “These were ‘attack plans.’ If you are revealing who is going to be attacked, it still gives the enemy a warning. When you release the time of the attack – all of that is always ‘classified.’”
Griffin’s pointed assessment has amplified calls for accountability, even as the Trump administration continues to frame the leak as an overblown media controversy.
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