The Ongoing Fallout from Signalgate

Heads Should Roll, Resignations Now

Last week, the Atlantic reported that its editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was unknowingly added to a chat between high ranking members of the White House that were in the midst of planning an upcoming series of strikes against Houthi forces in Yemen. The initial limited screenshots and timeline presented by Goldberg suggested that mission-relevant data regarding airstrike targets, munitions, and aircraft was shared by members of the chat. In response to the administration’s denial of the story (with claims ranging from the denial of sensitive information being shared to denying the existence of the chat altogether), the Atlantic released the full, unabridged logs of the conversation screenshotted by Goldberg. This series of events has been dubbed “Signalgate” and represents the largest scandal in the second Trump administration (so far). Pete Hegseth is currently under investigation by the Pentagon for his usage of Signal in planning operations.

This is a major failure by the current administration.
Firings should happen.
Heads should roll.

For starters, we can turn our attention towards the administration’s failure to take accountability for a major blunder by top-ranking members of the military and intelligence community. The White House’s response has shifted from initially denying the incident, to reassuring the public that no classified material was shared, to insisting that Goldberg gained access to the chat through foul-play. The administration is following Trump’s playbook of denial and deflection - only now rather than trying to scam his way out of paying contractor invoices, Trump has to defend the actions and judgement of people he put into office. In a normal administration something like Signalgate would lead to resignations, a subsequent shuffling of the cabinet, and a review of security and OPSEC throughout the military and intelligence community. Under the second Trump administration, Signalgate is the new standard for the White House’s approach to public outcry: “it didn’t happen, and if it did, then it was great - and also your fault”.

Beyond the failure of the White House’s coverup, Signalgate also exposed the open disdain that the Vice President has for the United States’ European partners. Vance expresses hesitancy over approving strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen and doesn’t want to “bail out Europe again”. Ignoring the fact that European NATO allies supporting the United States in the aftermath of 9/11, we should consider the fact that the Vice President appears to be making major decisions and directing foreign policy through the framework of perceived slights and petty grievances. The threat to international shipping and logistics posed by the Houthis is a matter of international concern and can have major implications for the global economy - American intervention is a matter of global security, not a favor we’re doing for an ungrateful friend. We can assume that any country that considers the US a strategic partner is correctly viewing Vance’s petulant attitude towards intervention as the guiding principle of American foreign policy for the next four years.

Finally, we should broader view Signalgate and view the crisis for what it really is - a massive, compounding series of poor decisions made by individuals that represent the highest levels of the military and intelligence in this country and should know better. The signal chat participants were using personal devices tied to their civilian contact information (with many cell numbers already available via databrokers and leaked databases) to conduct sensitive business and were compromised when one of the participants accidentally added the wrong person. What if the person added wasn’t a reporter from the Atlantic, but instead a foreign agent trying to get close to the inner workings of the American government? What if someone seized Waltz’s phone and viewed the chat, or an adversary convinced him to unlock his device under duress? These are all questions that can be avoided by using established protocols for electronic communications for this type of content. Additionally, this chat occurred on a platform that is not compliant with FOIA requirements. What if something illegal or unethical was organized in this chat? Are high ranking intel members having sensitive conversations on Signal (or worse yet, Telegram) without oversight?

If nothing else, these events have shown us the chaos and lack of coordination from the administration in its response to the crisis and the factors leading up to Signalgate.