Four sources related to Politico that National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and his team have been systematically using the Signal app in recent weeks to coordinate official activities on sensitive dossiers, covering Ukraine, China, Gaza, and Middle East politics.
The revelation only fuels further questions about Waltz, already in the eye of the storm for mistakenly including The Atlantic’s editor Jeffrey Goldberg in a Signal group discussing military strikes against the Houthis, in Yemen.
According to Politico, the national security adviser and his staff allegedly created no fewer than 20 chats on the app in question. All sources, moreover, confirm that sensitive information was shared on these chats. “It was commonplace to stand up chats on any given national security topic,” said one of the people involved in the groups, adding that the chats often included cabinet members and high-ranking officials.
National security veterans have warned that this practice could violate regulations on protecting sensitive information from foreign adversaries, as well as federal record-keeping laws, if the chats are automatically deleted.
NSC spokesman Brian Hughes noted that the Signal app is allowed on government devices and that some agencies automatically install it on employees’ phones. He went on to point out that officials have also used the platform under President Joe Biden. “It is one of the approved methods of communicating with the understanding that a user must preserve the record,” Hughes said. “Any claim of use for classified information is 100 percent untrue.”
According to another of the four people who participated in the chats, Waltz and the new NSC staff began using Signal more and more frequently during the transition period leading up to Trump’s inauguration, and they never stopped.
During the week, the adviser and his staff were also criticized for using personal Gmail accounts for government communications, as reported by the Washington Post. However, the NSC reiterated that no material containing classified information was sent on this platform either.
Nevertheless, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday sent letters to several members of the Signal chat, asking them to appear before Congress as part of the investigation into potential security breaches due to their use of the app.
