It is one of the biggest security breaches for a generation: a journalist inadvertently invited to a text messaging group of senior cabinet members, discussing detailed plans for military action in the Middle East.
The scandal roiling US politics is scarcely believable, but has now been confirmed by the White House.
In short, the Editor of the Atlantic Magazine Jeffrey Goldberg was accidentally included on a Signal messaging App group which included among others the Director of the CIA, Director of National Intelligence, National Security Advisor, Defence Secretary, Secretary of State and Vice President.
This high level cabal of Trump’s inner circle was discussing upcoming military strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen, including detailed intelligence and military tactics.
This kind of in depth, highly sensitive war planning is normally done in the most secure facilities on the planet, namely the Situation Room of the West Wing of the White House where there is a Sensitive Compartmentalised Information Facility, or SCIF.
Here, senior political figures can talk freely, safe in the knowledge they are protected from eavesdropping bugs or electronic devices including phones which have been compromised by enemy intelligence services.
Similar facilities exist in the CIA and Pentagon for precisely the same purpose.
It is therefore astonishing that members of Trump’s cabinet engaged in a free-wheeling national security chat on a publicly available messaging system, which although was encrypted, has been shown to be vulnerable to hacking.
It is even more alarming that a journalist was included in the group chat, and that no-one spotted his number or questioned who he was.
Jeffrey Goldberg was able to access this high level, classified policy discussion for days on end both before and after the strikes on Yemen were ordered.
Democrats are already calling not just for an investigation, but also for possible charges to be brought under the Espionage Act.
What is even more remarkable is the casual, unguarded hostility shown in the chat towards European countries, which America used to count as close allies.
Vice President JD Vance and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth both lambasted Europe, suggesting Houthi attacks in the Red Sea were their problem.
“I just hate bailing Europe out again” said Vance, with Hegseth responding “I fully share your loathing of European freeloading – it’s PATHETIC.”
This gives us an unvarnished glimpse into the true mindset of Trump’s inner circle, which appears even more contemptuous of European democracies than we dared think.
The Trump reordering of the world is not only happening at breakneck speed, but also by text message, with little apparently regard for who might be reading it.
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