Trump officials dig in as intelligence world shudders over mounting news of more security lapses beyond the Signal leak
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SIGNALGATE: By now, you all know the story: Senior White House and cabinet officials discussed plans for an airstrike on Yemen via the Signal messaging app, and National Security AdvisorMichael Waltzmistakenly invited a journalist to the party. (If not, catch up with Spy Talk’sJeff Steinand Jonathan Broder’spiece on this epic screwup.)
The operating principle for the Trump administration’s hamfisted response to Signalgate was anold saw of the intelligence trade: Admit nothing, deny everything, and make counteraccusations. "There was no classified material that was shared in that Signal chat,” Director of National IntelligenceTulsi Gabbard asserted to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday. “It wasn’t classified information,” President Trump said. And so on.
And boy, did that strategy backfire. Accused of propagating a “hoax” and with nobody telling him there were any secrets in the text,Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic,released the whole thing. Israel was not pleased. Despite what the president and his team were saying, Israel had a secret it expected would be kept, well, secret.