US Presidential National Security Adviser Mike Volz and his deputy Alex Wong are leaving their positions in the Trump White House, CBS News reported, citing sources.
They are expected to leave on Thursday, the sources said. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
One source familiar with the situation at the National Security Council said the president believes enough time has passed since the Signal incident that the resignations of Walz and Wong could be framed as part of a reorganisation. The president did not dare to fire Volz because he believed it could be seen as condoning external pressure.
Volz’s firing was also reported by the WSJ.
On 24 March, Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the US magazine The Atlantic, described how President Donald Trump’s national security team included him in a secret chat room where strikes against the Yemeni Houthis were discussed. He said the discussion took place on the messenger Signal, which allows the exchange of encrypted messages. The chat included Trump’s national security adviser Mike Walz (he was the one who sent Goldberg the invitation), Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defence Pete Hagset and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
The chat was called the Houthi PC small group (“small group versus Houthi”). In it, Goldberg writes, a user named Pete Hagseth posted data “about upcoming strikes in Yemen, including information about targets, the weapons the U.S. would deploy, and the sequence of attacks.”
After the disclosure, Trump administration officials had to issue an explanation, assuring that the chat had not discussed military plans. Walz claimed responsibility for creating the group on Signal, but emphasised that he did not add Goldberg there.
The Atlantic later published screenshots of the correspondence, which mentioned such data as the timing of US strikes against Yemeni Houthis and the types of aircraft used for those strikes, as well as preliminary information about the results of the strikes.
Earlier, Politico reported, citing sources, that the US president’s entourage recommended that he release Walz. Donald Trump, in turn, said that he was not going to fire the adviser and called publications in the media about the leak a “witch hunt”.