Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, walks from a closed door Republican conference meeting at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

During an interview on “The Simon Conway Show,” U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) suggested that members of the Trump administration may have planned to purposefully leak the Yemen war plans to the press.

The war plans scandal occurred on March 15 when The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was accidentally included in a Signal group chat with high-ranking government officials discussing plans to bomb Yemen two hours before the attacks occurred. The strikes reportedly killed at least 53 people, including children, even though Trump routinely campaigned on being a candidate of peace and ending “forever wars.”

When asked about the scandal, Miller-Meeks told Conway that the officials involved, like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, may have wanted the sensitive plans to be leaked to the press.

“Could have been a strategy through, you know, through their conversation, national security, you know, Michael Waltz and Secretary Hegseth, that they wanted the information to be leaked? Because sometimes you want the information to be leaked,” Miller-Meeks said.

According to Goldberg, Waltz initially added him to the group chat that also included Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Waltz’s explanation was that Goldberg’s number was somehow “sucked in” his phone.

In addition to using unencrypted group chats, Waltz and his staff has also reportedly used private Gmail accounts for government communication, opening the possibility of another security breach.

The leak, which is regarded as a major breach of national security, has been repeatedly downplayed and obfuscated by members of the Trump administration — including President Donald Trump himself — despite calls for someone to be held accountable.

“I don’t fire people because of fake news and because of witch hunts,” Trump told NBC news last week.

Miller-Meeks, a member of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, acknowledged that a mistake was made and that fact needs to be acknowledged. However, the White House has attempted to brush the incident aside this week while Hegseth claimed that “nobody was texting war plans” in the first place.

During the interview, Miller-Meeks also floated the idea of someone within the administration wanting to make Trump look bad.

Miller-Meeks has been a supporter of Trump’s second term and his administration’s efforts to cut off vital National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding. She won reelection last November by just 799 votes in Iowa’s competitive 1st Congressional District.