The Term 'High Side' Appears in the Signal 'Leak' – What It Reveals Proves the Scandal Is Overblown
If you thought "Signalgate" wasn't already absurd enough, the so-called "scandal"—which barely lasted a week in the American political consciousness—just received an annotated breakdown in The New York Times. That analysis should make it abundantly clear how much "classified" information was actually present in the leaked conversation—and why there simply aren't enough air quotes in existence to emphasize the irony of this entire situation.
For those who haven't been following closely, here’s a recap: On Monday, Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic published an article with the sensational title, "The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans."
As it turned out, the title was a bit of an exaggeration. The gist of the story was simple: Goldberg, a vocal critic of the Trump administration, was inadvertently added to a Signal group chat with senior officials discussing plans related to Houthi rebels in Yemen. A major blunder? Certainly. But beyond that, what really happened?
Goldberg asserted that the leaked content was highly sensitive, extremely classified, and could have severely compromised American military operations if it had fallen into the wrong hands. He claimed the messages included, in his own words, "precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing."
The article was published just after noon on Monday. By the end of the day and into Tuesday, individuals involved in the chat addressed the situation, not by denying the chat’s existence but by pointing out how much Goldberg had exaggerated the significance of its contents.
"Nobody was texting war plans, and that’s all I have to say about that," stated Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
"There was no classified material that was shared in that Signal group," testified Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe, also appearing before the committee, reinforced this: "My communications, to be clear, in the Signal message group were entirely permissible and lawful and did not include classified information."
Realizing that their initial angle might not hold up, The Atlantic chose to release nearly the entire Signal chat to the public—only for it to land with a whimper. It lacked any "precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing" as promised. Unless, of course, by "precise" Goldberg meant "vague," a mix-up that, apparently, happens often.
They even adjusted their headline: "Here Are the Attack Plans That Trump’s Advisers Shared on Signal." The change in wording was subtle but telling—perhaps someone at The Atlantic recalled that the U.S. is neither officially nor technically at war with Yemen or the Houthis.
To make matters worse, one of Goldberg’s key claims—that Ratcliffe had revealed the name of "an active intelligence officer" with classified status—was nearly entirely baseless.
But since "Signalgate" initially seemed so promising, The New York Times decided to squeeze whatever they could from the story by publishing an annotated version titled, "The Leaked Signal Chat, Annotated," aiming to underscore its supposed severity.
Except, rather quietly, the Times had to acknowledge something rather inconvenient: the supposedly ultra-secure Houthi strike chat described by Goldberg wasn’t actually the real secure chat.
In other words, a scandal that was predicated on the idea that government officials had foolishly discussed classified military operations on a commercial chat app contained evidence that this wasn’t the classified chat at all. Imagine that.
The key piece of evidence? A message from White House National Security Advisor Mike Waltz on Friday, March 14, which kick-started the whole debacle:
Team, you should have a statement of conclusions with taskings per the President’s guidance this morning in your high side inboxes.
State and DOD, we developed suggested notification lists for regional Allies and partners.
Joint Staff is sending this am a more specific sequence of events in the coming days and we will work w DOD to ensure COS, OVP and POTUS are briefed.
The Times provided context for this message, offering the perfect reason to dismiss this so-called scandal:
"Government officials work sometimes in the ‘high side,’ which is a classified system, and the ‘low side,’ which is an unclassified government system."
"This entire conversation, however, takes place in neither the ‘high side’ nor the ‘low side,’ but in a publicly available messaging app."
Oh.
To reiterate, this isn’t to say that what happened was ideal. It wasn't. Someone—or multiple people—messed up significantly, and Goldberg and the media capitalized on that mistake for as much mileage as they could get.
But the "high side" reference? Barely a blip in the media narrative. Even The New York Times, which highlighted it, swiftly moved on.
Yet, Waltz’s comment made one thing abundantly clear: the critical information was stored elsewhere—not in a loosely managed Signal chat, which is how this controversy was packaged and sold to the public.
Why wasn’t this discussion taking place on the high side? The answer is simple and completely undermines the scandal: there was nothing classified to put there. No "precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing." No classified details. No outing of intelligence operatives. No "war plans."
Instead, what we had was an administrative blunder, amplified by dramatic headlines, that felt catastrophic for about 48 hours—until even The New York Times had to acknowledge that this wasn’t the real "war plans" chat.
In reality, it was more like a study group of students mistakenly adding their professor to a message thread. Nothing more.