“Houthi PC Small Group” was apparently not the only group chat Mike Waltz was cooking up on Signal.
Donald Trump’s national security adviser has made at least 20 chats on the commercial messaging app to discuss sensitive issues, Politico reported Wednesday.
Waltz and his team have apparently been regularly setting up Signal chats to discuss topics like Ukraine, Gaza, China, Africa, Europe, and Middle Eastern policy, four sources, some who had been added to the chats, revealed.
Two of the sources said that they were either in or had direct knowledge of the existence of at least 20 Signal chats, while all four claimed that they had seen sensitive information being discussed on them. They notably were unsure if what was sent could have been considered classified.
“Waltz built the entire NSC communications process on Signal,” one source told Politico.
“It was commonplace to stand up chats on any given national security topic,” another added, noting that the groups typically included high-level staff and Cabinet members.
Waltz’s spokesperson did not deny any of the report but claimed no classified information was involved.
A spokesperson for the National Security Council (NSC), Brian Hughes, told Politico, “Any claim of use for classified information is 100 percent untrue.”
In a statement to the Daily Beast, Hughes said that Signal is “an approved, encrypted messaging app and any claim NSC officials sending classified information over these channels is false.”
“It can be used for unclassified messaging and a user has the responsibility to preserve any official record created,” he continued. “Using Signal to send unclassified information is appropriate and these same facts have been reported multiple times in the last few days.”
Hughes also claimed that reports on Waltz’s Signal usage are a “clear attempt by some in media and the Democrats to obscure the simple truth” of his and the president’s success in “delivering for the nation by confronting our adversaries and standing with our allies to bring peace through strength.”
Politico’s report sheds light on how extensively Signal has been used within the Trump administration, despite nonprofit groups and security officials warning of its danger and potential violation of federal record-keeping laws as messages and chats can be deleted.
Waltz’s use of Signal was placed in intense focus last week after The Atlantic’s editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg revealed that he had been added to a group chat discussing military operations in Yemen by the NSC adviser.
Though Waltz has tried to tiptoe around how Goldberg was inadvertently added to the chat, even going so far as to suggest that his number was “sucked in” his phone during an interview with Laura Ingraham last week, that still hasn’t stopped White House officials from reportedly berating him behind closed doors.
“Everyone in the White House can agree on one thing,” a source close to the White House told Politico last week. “Mike Waltz is a f---ing idiot.”
In another explosive revelation, The Washington Post reported Monday that Waltz and a top aide were also sharing potentially sensitive information on military positions and systems over their personal Gmail accounts. The email service is less secure than Signal.
Hughes told the Daily Beast that Waltz did not use his Gmail to share classified information and rendered the report another “attempt to distract the American people from President Trump’s successful national security agenda that’s protecting our nation.”
