Donald Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz included a journalist in the Signal group chat about plans for US strikes in Yemen after he mistakenly saved his number months before under the contact of someone else he intended to add, according to three people briefed on the matter.
唐纳德·特朗普的国家安全顾问迈克·沃尔茨在 Signal 群聊中误将一名记者纳入关于美国在也门打击计划的讨论，原因是他数月前错误地将该记者的号码存成了他原本想添加的另一位联系人的名字，据三位知情人士透露。
The mistake was one of several missteps that came to light in the White House’s internal investigation, which showed a series of compounding slips that started during the 2024 campaign and went unnoticed until Waltz created the group chat last month.
这一失误是白宫内部调查中曝光的数起疏漏之一，调查揭示了一系列始于 2024 年竞选期间、直至上月沃尔茨创建群聊才被发现的连锁错误。
Trump briefly considered firing Waltz over the episode, more angered by the fact that Waltz had the number of Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic – a magazine he despises – than the fact that the military operation discussion took place on an unclassified system such as Signal.
特朗普曾短暂考虑因该事件解雇沃尔茨，但令他更为恼怒的是沃尔茨存有《大西洋月刊》主编杰弗里·戈德伯格的电话号码——该杂志是他深恶痛绝的——而非军事行动讨论发生在 Signal 这类非保密系统上的事实。
But Trump decided against firing him in large part because he did not want the Atlantic and the news media more broadly to have the satisfaction of forcing the ouster of a top cabinet official weeks into his second term. Trump was also mollified by the findings of the internal investigation.
但特朗普最终决定不予解雇，主要是不愿让《大西洋月刊》乃至更广泛的新闻媒体获得在其第二任期伊始就逼退一名内阁高官的满足感。内部调查结果也缓和了他的怒气。
The disclosures nonetheless triggered a “forensic review” by the White House information technology office, which found that Waltz’s phone had saved Goldberg’s number as part of an unlikely series of events that started when Goldberg emailed the Trump campaign last October.
尽管如此，事件披露仍引发白宫信息技术办公室启动“司法审查”，发现沃尔茨手机保存戈德伯格号码源于去年十月戈德伯格向特朗普竞选团队发送邮件后一连串匪夷所思的巧合。
According to three people briefed on the internal investigation, Goldberg had emailed the campaign about a story that criticized Trump for his attitude towards wounded service members. To push back against the story, the campaign enlisted the help of Waltz, their national security surrogate.
据三位了解内部调查的人士透露，戈德堡曾通过电子邮件向竞选团队发送了一篇批评特朗普对受伤军人态度的报道。为了反驳这篇报道，竞选团队寻求了他们的国家安全事务代表沃尔茨的帮助。
Goldberg’s email was forwarded to then Trump spokesperson Brian Hughes, who then copied and pasted the content of the email – including the signature block with Goldberg’s phone number – into a text message that he sent to Waltz, so that he could be briefed on the forthcoming story.
戈德堡的邮件被转发给了时任特朗普发言人的布莱恩·休斯，后者将邮件内容——包括带有戈德堡电话号码的签名栏——复制粘贴到一条短信中，发送给沃尔茨，以便他能就即将发布的报道获得简报。
Waltz did not ultimately call Goldberg, the people said, but in an extraordinary twist, inadvertently ended up saving Goldberg’s number in his iPhone – under the contact card for Hughes, now the spokesperson for the national security council.
据这些人说，沃尔茨最终并未打电话给戈德堡，但出人意料的是，他不慎将戈德堡的号码保存在了自己的 iPhone 中——存入了现任国家安全委员会发言人休斯的联系人卡片下。
A day after that Goldberg story was published, on 22 October, Waltz appeared on CNN to defend Trump. “Don’t take it from me, take it from the 13 Abbey Gate Gold Star families, some of whom stood on a stage in front of a 30,000 person crowd and said how he helped them heal,” Waltz said.
在那篇关于戈德堡的报道发表后的第二天，即 10 月 22 日，沃尔茨出现在 CNN 上为特朗普辩护。“不要只听我说，听听 13 位阿比门金星家庭成员的讲述，他们中有些人曾站在 3 万人面前的舞台上，讲述他是如何帮助他们疗伤的，”沃尔茨说道。
According to the White House, the number was erroneously saved during a “contact suggestion update” by Waltz’s iPhone, which one person described as the function where an iPhone algorithm adds a previously unknown number to an existing contact that it detects may be related.
白宫方面表示，该号码是在沃尔茨的 iPhone 进行“联系人建议更新”时被错误保存的，有人描述这一功能为 iPhone 算法会将一个此前未知、但可能相关的号码自动添加到现有联系人中。
The mistake went unnoticed until last month when Waltz sought to add Hughes to the Signal group chat – but ended up adding Goldberg’s number to the 13 March message chain named “Houthi PC small group”, where several top US officials discussed plans for strikes against the Houthis.
这一错误直到上月才被发现，当时沃尔茨试图将休斯加入 Signal 群聊，却误将戈德堡的号码添加进了名为“胡塞 PC 小组”的 3 月 13 日信息链，该群内有数名美国高级官员讨论针对胡塞武装的打击计划。
Waltz said in the immediate aftermath of the incident that he had never met or communicated with Goldberg. He also suggested on Fox News that Goldberg’s number had been “sucked” into his phone, seemingly in reference to how his iPhone had saved Goldberg’s number.
事件发生后，沃尔茨立即表示自己从未见过或与戈德堡有过任何联系。他还在福克斯新闻上暗示戈德堡的号码是被“吸”进了他的手机，似乎是指其 iPhone 自动保存了该号码的方式。
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The White House did not comment on this story, and the investigation did not resolve the extent of Waltz’s relationship with Goldberg, if any. Reached by phone on Saturday, Goldberg said: “I’m not going to comment on my relationship with Mike Waltz beyond saying I do know him and have spoken to him.”
白宫对此报道未予置评，调查也未明确沃尔茨与戈德堡之间是否存在关系及其程度。周六通过电话联系到的戈德堡表示：“除了承认我认识迈克·沃尔茨并与他有过交谈外，我不会进一步评论我们之间的关系。”
Trump was briefed on the findings of the forensic review last week around the time he decided to keep Waltz, a person familiar with the matter said. Trump accepted Waltz’s mea culpa and has publicly defended him in recent weeks since the group chat situation became public.
一位知情人士透露，特朗普上周听取了法证审查结果简报，大约在同一时间决定留任沃尔茨。特朗普接受了沃尔茨的道歉，并在群聊事件公开后的最近几周公开为其辩护。
When Trump left the White House on Thursday, he was joined aboard Marine One by his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, his personnel chief, Sergio Gor, and Waltz, which aides took as a show of support for the embattled national security adviser.
周四特朗普离开白宫时，陪同他乘坐海军一号的有幕僚长苏茜·怀尔斯、人事主管塞尔吉奥·戈尔以及沃尔茨，助手们将此视为对身陷困境的国家安全顾问的支持姿态。
Waltz also appears to have also engendered some sympathy from inside Trump’s orbit over the group chat because the White House had authorized the use of Signal, largely because there is no alternative platform to text in real time across different agencies, two people familiar with the matter said.
据两位知情人士透露，沃尔茨还因群聊事件在特朗普圈内获得了一些同情，因为白宫已授权使用 Signal，主要原因是在不同机构间缺乏其他可实时通信的平台。
Previous administrations, including the Biden White House, did not develop an alternative platform to Signal, one of the people said. As a temporary solution, the Trump White House told officials to use Signal as they had done during the transition instead of regular text-message chains.
包括拜登政府在内的历届政府都没有开发出 Signal 的替代平台，其中一位知情人士表示。作为临时解决方案，特朗普政府指示官员们像过渡时期那样使用 Signal，而非常规的短信群聊。