Trump national security adviser meant to add spokesperson not journalist to Signal chat, sources say

Trump national security spokesman Brian Hughes was the intended recipient of the Signal group chat invitation when Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeff Goldberg was added instead due to a cellphone snafu a few months ago, multiple sources familiar with the matter told CBS News.

National Security Advisor Mike Waltz's phone asked him last fall to save an unknown phone number – which had been messaged to him from Hughes, one of his closest advisers – as a new number for Hughes, sources said.

On March 24, Goldberg reported that he was added to a private group chat that appeared to include senior Trump officials coordinating ahead of airstrikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen. Trump officials later confirmed its authenticity.

Administration IT team members looked into the incident, and President Trump and other top White House officials were briefed on the investigation's findings last week.

The internal review found no previous phone communications between Waltz and Goldberg — or Hughes and Goldberg — until an email from Goldberg was sent to the Trump campaign in October.

Goldberg had written to the campaign asking for comment on a story related to Mr. Trump and the military.

Campaign officials wanted to loop in Trump surrogates such as Waltz, a military veteran.

After discussions with campaign aide Steven Cheung and others, Hughes copied and pasted the email from Goldberg, with Goldberg's email address and cellphone number, and messaged it to Waltz, two of the sources said.

Waltz's cellphone captured the phone number in the message and asked to save it as a new number for "Brian Hughes."

Waltz correctly called and messaged the real-life Hughes many times after that — his phone apparently didn't conflate Goldberg's number and Hughes' until after Waltz was in Jeddah, Saudi Arabi in March.

When Waltz tried to add Hughes to the Signal chat, it invited the wrong Hughes number from his phone rolodex. Signal, knowing the number belonged to Goldberg, apparently identified him as "JG." But no one in the Trump national security team chat noticed, several sources said.

The administration wasn't aware Goldberg was in the confidential chat until The Atlantic reached out to the White House for comment a couple hours before publication of their story, one of the sources said.

White House spokespeople did not immediately respond on Sunday to a CBS News request for comment.