John Bolton blasts Trump officials for using Signal to conduct government business
Former national security adviser John Bolton went after multiple Trump administration officials on Monday for reportedly using the messaging app Signal to conduct government business.
“I couldn't imagine anybody would use Signal,” Bolton told CNN’s Kasie Hunt on “The Arena.” “You know, some of the guests have commented that Signal’s highly encrypted. I'll just say this, if you think Signal is equivalent to U.S. government secure telecommunications, think again.”
The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, said in a new report that he had been given access to a group chat on Signal featuring top Trump administration officials including Vice President Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in which they talked about recent attacks targeting Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Goldberg said he had doubts originally that the Signal group was real because he did not think “the national-security leadership of the United States would communicate on Signal about imminent war plans.”
“How can you conduct official government business over a nonofficial channel?” Bolton said on “The Arena.” “Maybe there's some in extremis situation, when you're — you’re on Samoa or something, and there aren't any official channels. But … they were, they were in Washington, probably in their offices.”
Multiple Democrats went after Hegseth after Goldberg’s access to the group chat was revealed.
“There is no world in which this information should have been shared in non-secure channels,” Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), a Marine veteran, said online. “Hegseth is in so far over his head that he is a danger to this country and our men and women in uniform.”
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) alleged that every government official in the chat “committed a crime” that would commonly include jail time.
The State Department directed The Hill to a Monday press briefing from State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce.
“We will not comment on the Secretary’s deliberative conversations ... you should contact the White House,” Bruce said during the briefing when asked about the chat.
The Hill has reached out to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s office, the White House, the State Department, the CIA, Signal and the National Security Council for comment.
The Hill was pointed towards the National Security Council for comment by the Department of Defense.
Updated at 10:13 p.m. EDT