The Signal Saga Heats Up

But the Atlantic editor came with receipts. 

On Wednesday, Goldberg released the full text of the multi-day exchange between Hegseth, Vice President J.D. Vance, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and other top officials. The thread, which began four days before the military operation’s start, included information about its weapons, targets, and timing. “THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP,” Hegseth said on the morning of March 15, two hours before the surprise attack’s opening salvo.

Despite the Trump administration’s continued deflection and downplaying of what is now being called “Signalgate,” former intelligence and defense officials argue the published text chain may tell another story: Had the sensitive communications fallen into the wrong hands, they could have endangered U.S. troops. Amid ongoing fallout from the leak, many lawmakers, including some Republicans, are trying to determine how to hold the national security team responsible and prevent future blunders.

The administration’s first mistake may have been using a commercially available app to communicate. The Department of Defense considers Signal, like WhatsApp and iMessage, to be an “unmanaged app,” meaning that it’s not authorized to “access, transmit, store, or process non-public DoD information.” As recently as this month, the Pentagon sent an email advising its employees against using the civilian messaging platform, even to transmit unclassified information. “Russian professional hacking groups are employing the ‘linked devices’ features to spy on encrypted conversations,” the department said in a memo obtained by NPR. The National Security Agency (NSA) has also reportedly warned its staff of Signal’s potential vulnerabilities. 

Typically, high-level government officials use the White House Situation Room, a secure complex in the West Wing, to discuss sensitive military operations. Officials who are unable to attend meetings in person can join via mobile sensitive compartmented information facilities, or SCIFs, which have safeguards against eavesdropping. If neither option is available, they can use a secure video conferencing platform to call in. “But Signal is not one of those systems,” Larry Pfeiffer, a former senior CIA and NSA official, told the Washington Post. “Back in my time, [communicating] would have included secure phone, computer and video teleconference. In the office and at home.”

A Thursday report by Der Spiegel shed new damning light on the administration officials’ decision to forgo those traditional communication channels. The German news outlet found that the private contact details of Hegseth, Waltz, and Gabbard had been leaked online, raising concerns that hostile intelligence agencies could have used the information to hack into their devices and gain access to sensitive communications. “Most of these numbers and email addresses are apparently still in use,” the report found, with some of them linked to social media platforms including Signal. 

According to Michael Pregent, a former intelligence officer and Middle East analyst, tapping into high-level U.S. officials’ communications networks is a major collection priority for adversaries like Russia and China. But the Houthis, an Iran-backed terrorist organization, lack advanced signals intelligence capabilities. “The only reason there wasn’t a catastrophic outcome was because it wasn’t a sophisticated enemy,” Pregent told TMD. By the time U.S. warplanes were en route, he added, more advanced adversaries would “already have an air defense ambush in place.”

But although Waltz initiated the Signal chat, some analysts see Hegseth as the bigger offender. On the day of the airstrikes, the defense secretary shared details on attack sequencing, weather conditions, and U.S. assets involved in the bombardment, including F-18 fighter jets, MQ-9 drones, and Tomahawk cruise missiles. Crucially, he also provided the attack’s precise start time—what Pregent, who served in the Army’s 82^nd Airborne Division, described as one of the most “sensitive” and “classified” components of any military operation.  

“As soon as you have an operational name at CENTCOM and a go-time, that’s top secret,” he added. “You cannot declassify an operational mission in real time.”

Government guidance on classifying information is complicated and often contradictory. And the process of declassifying that material is, if anything, even more complex. But the Trump administration’s efforts to minimize the significance of the group chat have led to bipartisan calls in Congress for greater transparency. 

On Thursday, Republican Sen. Roger Wicker and Democratic Sen. Jack Reed—respectively the chairman and ranking member of the Armed Services Committee—penned a joint letter requesting that the Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General expedite an investigation into the circumstances around the group chat. The Atlantic report “raises questions as to the use of unclassified networks to discuss sensitive and classified information, as well as the sharing of such information with those who do not have proper clearance and need to know,” the pair wrote.

As Charles Hilu wrote in a piece for the site today, the incident has even elicited rare public criticism from Republican lawmakers:

Intelligence Committee member Sen. Todd Young said he was working to get more information from the White House. “There’s some unanswered questions still about the whole episode, and we’ll continue to work with the administration to get clarity on some of these unanswered questions,” he told The Dispatch.

The administration has insisted that there were no “war plans” accessible to Goldberg, which is how he originally described them. He called them “attack plans” in a follow-up story, a change that Hegseth seized on to criticize the journalist. For some Republicans on Capitol Hill, there’s no real distinction. Rounds told reporters he did not “know the difference” between the two. Rep. Don Bacon, a former Air Force brigadier general who has been especially critical of the second Trump administration’s foreign policy even before the group chat episode, said the administration was “being silly” on both the issue of “war plans” and that of classified information.

“They’re trying to parse words out,” the Nebraska Republican told The Dispatch. “They said it’s not classified. Well, it’s not classified now because we’ve already hit the targets. So, they’re playing word games. They’re digging a hole, and they’re hurting their own credibility. They ought to just say, ‘It was wrong. We learned from our mistake.’”

Indeed, Pregent called the incident a “lesson learned.” But it’s not one the administration should forget: “They are lucky that no one was killed as a result of this.”  

• Writing for the Washington Post, columnist and friend of the Dispatch Megan McArdle argued that sidelining DEI policies like using diversity statements in faculty hiring won’t be enough to address left-leaning bias on college campuses. “The diversity statement’s demise is a reminder that though the Trumpian remedy may be excessive and destructive, it aims to cure a real problem: These statements were often political litmus tests, one of many ways academia delivered the message ‘no conservatives need apply,’” she wrote. “The intellectual monoculture this promoted was prone to groupthink and a political liability for institutions that depend heavily on public support. No one should be sorry to see them go. But conservatives who are giddy about such victories should note that this is a very limited win. After all the diversity offices are renamed and the diversity statements withdrawn, academia will remain near-monolithically left. This is a problem for conservatives on campus and an even bigger problem for society, because it takes a lot of scholarly expertise to maintain a modern industrial economy. Scholarship that excludes half the available ideas isn’t up to the job—if only because such lopsided expertise can’t command the public trust.”

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on X Thursday: ‘Confirmed: Ninja swords Will Be Banned by This Summer. When We Promise Action We Take It.’

New York Times: [Attorney General Pam] Bondi Suggests Signal Chat Episode Is Unlikely to Be Criminally Investigated

“If you want to talk about classified information, talk about what was in Hillary Clinton’s home,” she said. “Talk about the classified documents in Joe Biden’s garage, that Hunter Biden had access to.” 

The Justice Department opened investigations into Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Biden in those instances, but neither ultimately faced criminal charges. She did not mention the prosecution of Donald J. Trump over his handling of classified documents after his first term in office — a case that was ultimately abandoned when he won a second term.

If you didn’t get a chance to catch the games yesterday, the MLB put together a montage of some of the best moments from Opening Days of years past.  

Do you think the Signal leak is one-and-done? Or will something like this happen again?