The Signal? Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic, Gabbard, Mark Warner: What Do You Want to Know About the Security Breaking in the United States?
If Jeffrey Goldberg and The Atlantic decide not to release any further information about what Goldberg saw during the group chat, Chang said. You inquired about Gabbard today. You said, well, if nothing’s classified, then share the contents with the committee. If you want to see those contents that are not classified, how do you go about it?
Warner: … whether she was using her phone or a government phone, but Ailsa step back for a moment — even with what we know right now, we have the vice president disagreeing with others about an imminent bombing — having that information, if it had gone out ahead of time, I can tell you that Russia and China, Iran, that’s what their spies would love to have. That info would only be considered classified in traditional ways, and not supposed to be disclosed.
Chang: If your Republican colleagues do not want to speak out against what happened without their support, are we going to see any accountability?
Mark Warner: I think they do. The fact that my fellow Republicans did not come to these people’s defense was telling. If anybody hasn’t heard, let’s just review very quickly there was a Signal — a good encrypted application, but it is not a classified means of transmitting information. We have evidence that Russia and China attempted to break into system. Two, you have senior level individuals talking on this non-classified channel, plain sloppiness and nobody bothered to check out the other person on the line, because they were on the channel.
As was expected, you and your fellow democrats had pretty strong words for the Director of National Intelligence, as well as John Ratcliffe, head of the CIA. None of your Republican colleagues seemed intent on keeping an eye on this entire Signal episode. Do you have a sense of whether any of those Republicans share your concerns?
A Pentagon advisory went out a week ago warning against using the app even for unclassified information, as NPR has learned.
Speaking to reporters after the Senate hearing, President Trump downplayed the massive security breach. There was nothing classified in the information that was provided, according to Trump.
He told All Things Considered that he discovered a massive security leak in the US national security system.
Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, revealed that he was accidentally added to a group chat in which top security officials discussed plans to bomb Yemen.
Warner told All Things Considered’s Ailsa Chang that there was a senior level of individuals communicating on the non-classified channel that was plain sloppiness that put a journalist on and nobody bothered to check who was on the line.
Among the senators reprimanding members of the Trump administration was ranking member Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, who slammed the incident as “mind-boggling.”
During a heated Senate hearing Tuesday, Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee grilled the nation’s top security officials about their participation in a Signal group chat and accidentally discussing war plans with a journalist.
Warner: Can I just add one last quick thing here? If this was the first time. Even though it would be terrible, it wouldn’t be as bad as it is now. The same administration inadvertently released the names of 200 CIA new agents a couple weeks ago. There are many people who can’t be deployed and this administration that releases classified information almost on a daily basis.
The Senate Intelligence Committee is always bipartisan, which is something I like about the committee. Warner was chairman under the last administration and is now the vice chair. I believe if the administration tries to stonewall this we will have bipartisan support for us as the intelligence committee, which is supposed to be making sure things are appropriate. We’ll get a look at this at the transcript.
Goldberg says he saw the plans days after being added to a Signal chat called “Houthi PC small group” by a user named Michael Waltz, the name of President Trump’s national security adviser. “It was a chilling thing to realize that I’ve inadvertently discovered a massive security breach in the national security system of the United States,” Goldberg told NPR’s All Thing Considered.
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If we did it, all of us who’ve served in the military would be in Leavenworth, said a former congressman.
Ned Price, a former CIA analyst who was the deputy to the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. said that heads are “explodeing” in conversations with his former colleagues.
“The meetings of the Principals Committee are held in the White House Situation Room, perhaps the most secure venue within the U.S. government,” Price said.
Greg Myre reports that there are secure rooms to discuss classified information. “You can’t take a phone into these rooms. All of the top national security officials have security clearances at their homes and offices, and they can’t take documents out.
“This is a top secret network that beams them into the White House Situation Room,” Price says, adding that if a member is traveling, a national security team accompanies them to set up a secure tent and other equipment to protect their communications.
The defense secretary shared information about targets and weapons on the Signal app just hours before the attack, according to Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic.
Goldberg did not share what he said could be damaging elements of the communications sent to him, including what he called “operational details of forthcoming strikes.”
National security experts were alarmed by the use of a publicly available messaging app. The Department of Defense specifically cited an “unmanaged” messaging app as an example of something not authorized to transmit non-public DOD information.
The use of open-source software by the government is not a good idea, according to experts.
Deputy White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and her apparent reference to President Vance: The Security Breeches in the Signal Message Group
The Principals Committee chat’s 18 members included Vice President Vance; White House chief of staff Susie Wiles; and “S M,” an apparent reference to Trump adviser Stephen Miller. The Director of National Intelligence, and the Director of the CIA, were questioned about the breach during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Tuesday.
“Those agencies are absolutely fanatical about secure communications,” NPR’s Greg Myre says of the CIA and DNI. Based on Goldberg’s account, no senior national security official objected to the sharing of war plans on Signal.
Last week, a memo went out to staff about a vulnerability in the messaging app. The notice cited risks from “Russian professional hacking groups” working to spy on encrypted communications. It’s thought that the notice was sent days after Goldberg said he had somehow been added to the PC group.
Democratic senators on the Senate Intelligence Committee pushed back aggressively against those claims by CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
“My communications, to be clear, in a Signal message group were permissible and lawful and did not include classified information,” Ratcliffe testified.
Gabbard refused to say whether she was on the Signal chat group, but added that she has not shared any classified information outside of proper channels.
Goldberg wrote that the 18 people who took part in the text chain were all from the same group, including Vice President J.D. Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Goldberg said he initially thought it might be a hoax, but came to believe it was real as he read the texts over the course of several days. He said his inclusion in the group must have been inadvertent. He speculated that Waltz, or an aide handling his account, intended to include someone else with the same initials as Goldberg — “JG.”
At the White House, the National Security Council confirmed the authenticity of the message thread on Monday, saying it was “reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.”
Lawmakers are worried that the security breeches raises questions about the Trump administration’s handling of sensitive information.
Democrats in Congress had roundly criticized many of Trump’s security and intelligence picks for their perceived lack of experience during the nomination process — and are now calling for further investigation.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have publicly called for an investigation into what they respectively called “this unacceptable and irresponsible national security breach” and the “damage it created.”
“We’re very concerned,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., told reporters on Monday, adding that his panel would look into the matter directly.
Maine senator Susan Collins is a member of the Intelligence Committee. Collins believed that the incident was plausible to him.
Ahead of Tuesday’s hearing, Sen. Rounds suggested that there would be a deeper discussion about the incident behind closed doors.
“I don’t think it was a good thing, but I want to hear an explanation of it from the people involved in it in a classified setting, so that I can make a judgement,” Rounds told NPR.
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In the House, Republicans have largely been more muted. The issue was not raised during the House GOP weekly meeting on Tuesday.
He said that it was a mistake and a serious one. But Johnson described the participants in the chat as “patriots,” adding, “that was a successful mission.”