As the fallout from reports of a groupchat about a planned attack on Houthis in Yemen intensifies, DNI head Tulsi Gabbard and Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe both swore under oath to the Senate that no classified information or war plans were shared in the group, which was created by National Security Adviser Mike Waltz.

Waltz apparently added the editor-in-chief from the anti-Trump magazine The Atlantic to the chat by mistake. Jeffrey Goldberg has the same initials as United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, whom it seems Waltz intended to add.

Goldberg wasted no time publishing a scathing and accusatory article about the groupchat, claiming that classified information was shared in the nonsecure Signal group.

"The Trump administration accidentally texted me its war plans," Goldberg's headline screamed.

"Entirely permissible and lawful"

But here's what Gabbard and Ratcliffe said about their participation in the chat:

Gabbard testified, “There was no classified material that was shared in that Signal chat."

Ratcliffe said, “My communications, to be clear, in the signal message group were entirely permissible and lawful and did not include classified information.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who did not testify under oath, mocked Goldberg's use of the term "war plans," saying that the chat included "No names. No targets. No locations. No units. No routes. No sources. No methods."

While technically true, there was probably enough information in the chat to have tipped off the relevant parties if it had fallen into their hands.

And if a different, more radical journalist had been added instead of Goldberg, it could have.

Shoe on the other foot

After Hegseth's denials, Goldberg released the entirety of the emails, and maybe by the letter of the law they didn't do anything wrong, but it doesn't seem like a good idea to give that much information in that format.

Republicans surely made a big deal of Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden using nonsecure emails and email servers to send information, and really this is not much different.

It seems increasingly difficult to keep everything under wraps in this world of ubiquitous technology we now live in.

Even so, it would be nice if our top officials tried a little harder.