Donald Trump’s national security advisor Mike Waltz reportedly set up multiple unsecured Signal group chats to discuss world crises.
Last week, the editor of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg reported that Waltz mistakenly adding him to a Signal group chat where national security officials discussed sensitive military strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen.
Now, four people told Politico that Waltz set up at least 20 Signal chat groups similar to the one he added Goldberg to last month. The chats were to coordinate official work on issues including Ukraine, China, Gaza, Middle East policy, Africa and Europe.
“Waltz built the entire NSC communications process on Signal,” said one of the people. Another person revealed that cabinet members and high-level level staff were often added to the groups.
All four people who spoke to Politico said they saw instances of sensitive information being discussed.
NSC spokesperson Brian Hughes defended the use of the Signal app and denied that classified information was shared.
“It is one of the approved methods of communicating but is not the primary or even secondary, it is one of a host of approved methods for unclassified material with the understanding that a user must preserve the record,” Hughes said. “Any claim of use for classified information is 100 percent untrue.”
Waltz’s repeated use of Signal to discuss sensitive national security information comes after the National Security Agency sent out an operational security special bulletin to its employees in February warning them of vulnerabilities in using the messaging app, according to internal NSA documents obtained by CBS News.
“A vulnerability has been identified in the Signal Messenger Application. The use of Signal by common targets of surveillance and espionage activity has made the application a high value target to intercept sensitive information,” the advisory read.
“Russian professional hacking groups are employing the ‘linked devices’ feature to spy on encrypted conversations,” it added.
