The ‘Signal’ Breach Speaks Volumes About Intelligence Security and So Much More

An Administration run by those who see themselves above the law threaten the world

Put yourself in the position of a foreign ally of the United States. You depend on the U.S. for reliable intelligence information and, in return, you trust that the sensitive and highly classified reports you provide to the U.S. are secure.

Then you learn that detailed operational plans for an attack on Yemen - including the timing, strategies, sequencing and the weapons to be used - were being aired in a group chat using an unsecured messaging app, Signal. Among the participants were the entire leadership of the U.S. intelligence and security apparatus and a reporter, Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic.

This comes on the heels of President Trump’s on-again-off-again threats to impose tariffs, to take the Panama Canal and Greenland “one way or the other,” the administration’s parroting of Russian propaganda (among many other examples, Steve Witkoff, Trump’s top negotiator, falsely claiming the people of eastern Ukraine want to be part of Russia) and on and on.

No doubt, allies now must be even more reluctant to share critical intelligence with this group of amateurs. How could any foreign government trust the United States when the most confidential information is treated like a casual group chat about weekend plans?

This disclosure of highly classified information is not Hillary Clinton’s emails or the classified documents discovered in Joe Biden’s garage. This is a threat to the military, to the intelligence infrastructure and to the security of the U.S. and our allies brought about through the illegal disclosure of highly classified war plans by the very people charged with protecting the United States.

Whether allies will ever trust U.S. with sensitive intelligence is just one of the many questions raised by the breach, including these:

How is it that with every key member of the country’s security and intelligence leadership team in the chat, not a single person thought to say, “Hey, do you think we should take this conversation to a secure channel”? That no one raised a question about using the Signal app raises the even more frightening prospect that using unsecured channels is routine for this administration. As one security expert pointed out, Signal may be vulnerable to eavesdropping by adversaries, but it allows the record of conversations to be deleted leaving no trace of how, why or even what decisions are being made.

Can it possibly be true that President Trump was not immediately briefed on a security failure of this magnitude? Trump denied knowing anything about it when first asked. If that is true why is he so far out of the loop on national security? If Trump is lying again, well that speaks for itself.

How can any member of the U.S. military now trust that the top civilian leadership takes their safety seriously when they are so cavalier about where and how incredibly sensitive information is shared - information that in the wrong hands would cost Americans their lives?

Is there a single Republican senator who voted to confirm Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth who now will acknowledge that experience as a Fox commentator is not a valid credential for this post?

Will the administration seek a scapegoat, Hegseth for organizing the conversation on the unsecured channel or National Security Advisor Mike Waltz who apparently is the one who linked the reporter to the chat? And is one scapegoat enough to put to rest a failure that demands a comprehensive evaluation of this administration’s security and intelligence protocols?

Congressional Republicans are expressing “concern,” but will run for cover, putting their fear of MAGA’s political retribution over loyalty to the country. Once again, it is left to Democrats to make the case in clear and compelling terms just how dangerous this breach is for our country and what it says about Trump and his minions.

Democrats haven’t done so well with this task up to now. They keep believing in their naïveté there are lines Trump won’t cross. Those lines don’t exist for an administration led by inadequate and incompetent people who feel entitled to ignore the law for their convenience and ideology.

The most important question emerging from this travesty is this: Is the American public so immune to the damage this administration is doing everyday to the Constitution, vulnerable Americans and our allies that they don’t care enough to even demand any accountability? Democrats need to lead in making sure that question is answered correctly for the future of our country. The world depends on it.