THE TOP ISSUE OF THE 2016 presidential election, the one that changed Donald Trump from a TV loudmouth to a world historical figure, was information security. Hillary Clinton’s private email server and the mere possibility that classified information might have traversed it dominated media coverage and featured prominently in Trump’s attacks. Then he won the election and became the biggest information security risk in U.S. history.
Eight years later and the dumb keeps coming: In a stunning new security lapse revealed Monday, top Trump administration officials included Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg in their group chat on the encrypted messaging app Signal. At one point, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth shared operational details about upcoming U.S. airstrikes in Yemen, and two hours later they happened.
We’re not talking about an embedded mole carefully eluding detection. Trump’s national security advisor, Michael Waltz, sent Goldberg—a personification of establishment media if there ever was one—an invitation. Goldberg says he eavesdropped on the chat for two days. Apparently none of America’s national security leaders or their staffers noticed.
This incident exposes a rich vein of political hypocrisy—all the untold hours of Trump administration officials criticizing Hillary Clinton for her emails—that it is difficult to resist mining. But this latest lapse fits into a disturbing broader pattern, with serious implications for our national security.
U.S. military commanders see easily avoidable leaks like this and worry about operational security. At minimum, when the most senior defense leaders are information security risks, it adds another factor to planning that’s already quite complex.
U.S. intelligence partners see failures like this and conclude America can’t be trusted. They have to operate under the assumption that any sensitive information given to the United States could be accidentally leaked by top officials. Not to mention the possibility that President Trump or longtime Putin sympathizer Tulsi Gabbard, the new director of national intelligence, will give it away to adversaries. The loss of trust damages counterterrorism, insight into foreign governments, and other national security goals.
If these idiots are accidentally roping in the editor of the Atlantic on secret war deliberations, what are the chances they’re making other serious information-security mistakes, including ones that create openings for foreign intelligence agencies? Probably pretty high.
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Avoiding problems like that is the point of experts, time-tested procedures, and rule-followers. At a basic level, why are senior national security officials using a private organization’s messaging app instead of U.S. government-controlled communications protected by the NSA and preserved as required under the Federal Records Act? And why are classified war deliberations being set up by the national security advisor personally sending out invites to other users on an app?
It’s stupid, it’s bad for the country, but Americans shouldn’t be surprised. Trump was historically terrible for information security in his first term and after, and voters elected him again in 2024 anyway.
Recall that, less than a month after first taking office in 2017, Trump conducted an emergency meeting on a surprise North Korea ballistic missile launch with Japan’s prime minister at Mar-a-Lago, in view of resort guests with smartphones. The president’s Florida beach club/home is easily accessible, and multiple unauthorized individuals have made it past security, including a suspected Chinese spy carrying a laptop, external drives, and four phones.
Just two months into his first term, the president blurted out highly sensitive intelligence from a foreign partner to Russia’s ambassador and foreign minister in the Oval Office. It wasn’t illegal—the commander-in-chief has the power to disclose classified information—but it served no national interest, and looked like an attempt to impress the Russian officials. The information came from Israel, and concerned a spy placed high inside ISIS in Syria, which was led at the time by Bashar al Assad, a Russian ally and Israeli adversary.
Those are just two early examples. Trump intervened to get his son-in-law Jared Kushner a top White House position even though Kushner couldn’t pass the standard background check. Kushner subsequently requested more information from the intelligence community than almost any other executive branch official, including on topics outside his purview. He also used WhatsApp to communicate with Saudi Leader Mohammed bin Salman, who was later caught putting malware on Amazon owner Jeff Bezos’s phone.
After leaving office, Trump illegally took documents containing national security secrets, including some pertaining to nuclear weapons, and kept them in unsecure spaces at Mar-a-Lago. That alone was easily worse than any information security breach Hillary Clinton did—or other notable examples, such as Joe Biden, Mike Pence, and David Petraeus—not least because those individuals cooperated with federal officials, while Trump repeatedly lied and defied the law. That led to criminal charges, but with the help of loyalist judge Aileen Cannon, Trump managed to delay the case long enough to run for and win the 2024 election.
As bad as Trump’s first term was for information security, the White House included some serious professionals that contained his worst impulses. The second Trump administration has been purging those sorts of people and replacing them with loyalists (or no one), further transforming the federal government from a competent, professional civil service into a tool of corrupt authoritarianism.
Will Trump punish Waltz or anyone else responsible for this security lapse? Someone might get fired to contain the embarrassment, but it probably won’t improve anything, as Trump prizes loyalty more than competence. And his broader priority is clear: America’s president doesn’t mind if his administration’s actions weaken the United States—so long as he gains more domestic power for himself. To him that counts as a good deal.
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