Picking up on the post by Yavin4. This national security failure was not caused by a black, gay woman.

[Ford_Prefect]

10. All of them were on this informal unsecured channel so that there was No Record of any of it.

The only documentation was provided by the reporter for the Atlantic, who was the only participant who dealt with the information and situation correctly. It has been noted elsewhere that using such media was advocated internally by the White House as a means of avoiding legally required documentation of all kinds.

So we have the principal members of the administration, including the Vice President, avoiding public record by using informal media they had ALL been officially warned by the CIA or NSA not to use in ANY CIRCUMSTANCES discussing in plain text and language highly secure war plans regarding an immanent attack by our forces. In addition they seem to have used personal phones and devices which were not secure while so discussing it. One of the participants was in Moscow at the time on her PERSONAL phone.

There are No Excuses, no mulligan which could be called, for people at this level so doing in blatant disregard of every protocol ever used by ANY previous administration, diplomat, or security service.
The only reason they would have invited the reporter is either to later blame him, or because some mole in the system felt that this needed exposure.
The exposure would be just how ready all of them are to go to war on any pretext, and without informing any of the House and Senate leadership prior to doing so, as required by the Constitution, and several laws.