The White House’s assertion that the case is closed surrounding national security officials’ use of Signal is getting pushback in Congress, even among some Republicans who say their own probes will press on.
On Monday, the White House said it had taken steps to ensure the inadvertent addition of a journalist to a group chat to discuss sensitive information about a pending airstrike in Yemen can “never happen again.”
But Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), a member of the Senate’s Armed Services Committee, noted lawmakers’ plans to probe the matter are not over after asking for an investigation by the inspector general of the Department of Defense.
“I think that’s very hopeful messaging,” he said when asked by The Hill about the White House’s comments. “And maybe it is – but we’ll wait and see what the inspector general for the DOD says.”
“It’s already ongoing. We already requested it – the committee did on a bipartisan basis – and we’ll look at it on a bipartisan basis.”
Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) was among those on the Senate Intelligence Committee who told national security leaders gathered recently for the annual worldwide threats hearing that he had additional questions on the matter.
“All concerns haven’t been addressed. So there will be more to be learned going forward,” he told The Hill.
To be sure, many Republicans were uninterested in addressing the topic at all. Even as Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe appeared before lawmakers in the two days after the news broke, many did not raise the issue during their time for questions.
But bipartisan efforts to review the matter in the Senate will continue to move forward, while House Democrats have likewise pushed for outside review elsewhere across government.
It’s not clear what steps the White House has taken, even as they seek to move past the controversy.
“This case has been closed here at the White House, as far as we are concerned,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Monday.
“There have been steps taken to ensure that something like that can obviously never happen again 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,” Leavitt added, referencing President Trump’s national security adviser.
And Trump also waived off the issue when asked by reporters Thursday about whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth would face investigation.
“Don’t bring that up again. … It’s such a wasted story.”
Administration officials have also expressed frustration that more focus hasn’t been placed on the success of the operation, which struck Houthi targets.
The fallout from the chat continues, however, with additional stories about the use of Signal.
The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Waltz had created other Signal groups to discuss national security matters and that an ally, Israel, was annoyed to see intelligence it supplied for the strike in Yemen shared publicly.
Politico reported Wednesday that Waltz’s team has set up at least 20 different Signal chats to coordinate on different matters.
Intelligence experts argue that despite its use of encryption, Signal is not an appropriate channel for discussing classified or sensitive information, and intelligence agencies have previously cautioned employees on Signal, noting it is a target of foreign adversaries.
Legal experts have said the inadvertent sharing of national defense information with The Atlantic reported added to the group would likely violate the Espionage Act, while the chat’s disappearing message function would also run afoul of public records laws.
The Washington Post also reported Monday that Waltz and his staff had used a less secure platform – Gmail – to conduct government business, though an NSC spokesman said the advisor always cc’d his work account to comply with records laws when reached by “legacy contacts” and “didn’t and wouldn’t send classified information on an open account.”
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, penned an op-ed in the Journal to say the Signal episode “is far from a closed case.”
“It means we’ll never know how many more screw ups there were. It means that we don’t know if the phones have even been swept for malware. It means we don’t know how many other conversations went on. And frankly if my Republican colleagues can’t find their voices on this, it doesn’t bode well for national security,” he told The Hill.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), also a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, raised similar concerns.
“The case is far from closed. We still have no idea what other chats were going on, what other email communications may have violated the law. There’s been no accountability. They’d like to close the case, but the problem persists and that means we’re less safe,” he said.
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) said he was unaware what the White House’s internal review process was and declined to comment on whether that was sufficient.
“I don’t know what they’ve done internally on their processing on it. I mean, the biggest question that I had is, what is a good way that the executive branch can communicate to each other while they’re on the road critical things – that’s gotta be there. So what’s the format to be able to do that? You’ve got to have some way to be able to communicate to do that,” he said.
Beyond the request for an investigation from the DOD’s OIG, House Intelligence Democrats have also called on Gabbard to ignite a damage assessment of the incident – something routine when there is spillage of classified information.
And Democrats on the House Oversight Committee asked for an investigation from the inspectors general of the Department of Defense, the State Department, the CIA and the Treasury Department as well as White House counsel David Warrington.
“It is critical that your offices investigate this matter and any other incidents in which senior national security leaders in the Trump Administration have, either through incompetence or neglect, compromised highly sensitive or classified national security information,” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) the top Democrat on the panel, wrote to each.
