WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump downplayed the political and security scandal on Tuesday over the sending of text messages about sensitive plans for a military attack against the Houthi rebels in Yemen this month in a chat group that included a journalist, saying it was “the only mistake in two months” of his administration.
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Trump told NBC News that the slip “turned out not to be serious” and expressed his support for National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who mistakenly added The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, to the chain where 18 senior government officials were, including some unrelated to security, such as the Treasury Secretary.
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“Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he is a good man,” Trump said. He also seemed to blame an unidentified Waltz assistant for adding Goldberg to the chain. “It was one of Michael’s employees on the phone. A staff member included his number there.”
Harsh criticism from Democrats of the Trump government due to serious leaks
But the use of the messaging app Signal to discuss a sensitive operation has led the government to receive devastating criticism from Democratic lawmakers, who expressed their outrage at the insistence of the White House and top officials in the administration that classified information was not shared.
Government officials have not been able to explain why a public access application was used to discuss such a sensitive issue.
An official who, according to reports, was on the Signal chain, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, said on Tuesday, at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, that she was on a trip abroad during the conversation. She did not want to say whether she was using her personal phone or one provided by the government because the matter is under review by the White House National Security Council.
Both Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who also participated in the Signal dialogue and testified at Tuesday’s intelligence hearing, faced strong criticism from lawmakers.
“This is a disgrace,” said Democratic Senator from Georgia Jon Ossoff. “It is completely unprofessional. No apologies have been offered. The seriousness of this mistake has not been acknowledged.”
A new contradiction from Donald Trump
In the period leading up to his 2016 electoral victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton, Trump urged for former Secretary of State to be criminally prosecuted for communicating about classified information with her assistants on a private email server she had set up. The matter was investigated, but the FBI ultimately recommended not to press charges, which was followed.
Clinton was one of the Democrats who criticized the use of Signal by Trump administration officials this week.
“They must be joking,” Clinton said in a post on X that highlighted The Atlantic article and included an eyes emoji.
Trump also faced charges for mishandling classified information at his Mar-a-Lago residence after his first term in the White House. However, those charges were later dismissed.
However, on Tuesday, top administration officials insisted that the Democratic outrage was unwarranted.
At the Capitol, Ratcliffe and Gabbard told lawmakers that, in the chain of messages, no classified information was included in the texts about the United States' attack plans.
But in an interview with MSNBC, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic reported that the messages included accurate information about weapon packages, targets, and timing, but those details were not published in the article.
The Democrats responded, saying that the leaked military plans show a blatant disregard for security, but Ratcliffe insisted that no rules were violated.
“To be clear, my communications in the Signal messaging group were entirely permissible and legal and did not include classified information,” Ratcliffe told lawmakers at the hearing, which supposedly was supposed to focus on global security threats.
When facing heated questions from Democratic Senator from Virginia, Mark Warner, Gabbard said that there is a difference between “involuntary” disclosures of information and intentional leaks.
“If this information had come out, American lives could have been lost. If the Houthis had had this information, they could have repositioned their defense systems,” Warner said.
In response to questions from Democratic Senator from Oregon, Ron Wyden, Gabbard and Ratcliffe said they would participate in an audit to investigate the use of Signal by government officials. Wyden said that this should be investigated.
“I think there should be resignations,” added Democratic Senator from Oregon, Ron Wyden.
What is Signal?
Signal is an application that can be used to send direct messages and group chats, as well as for phone calls and video calls. It uses end-to-end encryption for its messaging and calling services, which prevents any third party from seeing the content of the conversation or listening to the calls.
But Signal’s encryption protocol is open source, which means it is freely available for anyone to inspect, use, or modify. The encryption protocol is also used by another popular chat service, the WhatsApp platform owned by the social media company Meta.
The use of Signal became more prevalent during the last year of Joe Biden’s government, when several federal law enforcement officials warned that China and Iran were hacking the White House, as well as officials from Trump’s first term, according to the official.