White House considers Signal chat leak case 'closed,' reiterates support for Waltz, press secretary says
The White House considers the Signal group chat leak case "closed," Trump administration press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the media Monday while reiterating President Donald Trump's support of national security advisor Mike Waltz.
"As the president has made it very clear, Mike Waltz continues to be an important part of his national security team," Leavitt told the media in brief remarks during a gaggle outside of the White House's press room Monday afternoon. "And this case has been closed here at the White House, as far as we are concerned."
"There have been steps made to ensure that something like that can obviously never happen again," she continued. "And we're moving forward. And the president and Mike Waltz and his entire national security team have been working together very well, if you look at how much safer the United States of America is because of the leadership of this team."
The Trump administration came under scrutiny from Democrats and other critics after the Atlantic's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, revealed in an article published March 24 that he was added to a Signal group chat with top national security leaders, including Waltz, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.
Signal is an encrypted messaging app that operates similarly to texting or making phone calls, but with additional security measures that help ensure communications are kept private to those included in the correspondence.
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The Atlantic's report characterized the Trump administration as texting "war plans" regarding a planned strike on Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Trump administration has maintained, however, that no classified material was transmitted in the chat, with Trump repeatedly defending Waltz amid the fallout.
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Waltz took responsibility for the journalist's inclusion in the high-profile group chat, including in an interview with Fox News' Laura Ingraham.
"I built the group. My job is to make sure everything’s coordinated," Waltz said on "The Ingraham Angle."
"Of course I didn’t see this loser in the group. It looked like someone else," Waltz added. "The person I thought was on there was never on there."
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Leavitt told the media Wednesday that the administration was investigating the incident, explaining Elon Musk's team was also assisting with the investigation.
"The National Security Council, the White House Counsel's Office, and also, yes, Elon Musk's team" will be leading the investigation into the Signal leak, Leavitt said during a White House press briefing.
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"Elon Musk has offered to put his technical experts on this, to figure out how this number was inadvertently added to the chat – again, to take responsibility and ensure this can never happen again," she continued.
Trump slammed the media's coverage of the group chat in a Truth Social post Sunday afternoon, calling it the "never ending Signal story."
"They just don’t stop – Over and over they go! Meet the Fake Press should instead explain how successful the attack was, and how Sleepy Joe Biden should have done it YEARS AGO," he posted.
"This story and narrative is so old and boring, but only used because we are having the most successful ‘First One Hundred Presidential Days’ in the history of America, and they can’t find anything else to talk about. The Fake News Media has the lowest Approval Ratings in history, and for good reason. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!"