Trump Official Was Reportedly Involved in Other Questionable Signal Chats

The Trump administration made itself look more incompetent and dysfunctional than usual last week when the Secretary of Defense accidentally texted details of a secret bombing mission in Yemen to the head editor of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg. “Signalgate”—as it has come to be known—has spurred fresh scrutiny of the White House, as concerns swirl over the team’s ridiculous approach to OPSEC. Now, a new report claims that the official responsible for the debacle was also involved in other secret conversations on the app.

National security advisor Mike Waltz has taken responsibility for adding Goldberg to the infamous Signal chat, and screenshots published by The Atlantic clearly show that he was the one to do it. However, the Trump administration has also now put Waltz in charge of finding out how this happened, as if there’s some big technical mystery that needs solving. As Waltz runs point on his own fuckup, a new story claims that he may have been involved in several other ill-advised chats. The Wall Street Journal reports:

Two U.S. officials also said that Waltz has created and hosted multiple other sensitive national-security conversations on Signal with cabinet members, including separate threads on how to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine as well as military operations. They declined to address if any classified information was posted in those chats.

Critics have speculated that the Trump administration has been using encrypted civilian messaging apps as a way to circumvent public transparency regulations—a decision many security experts seem to think is mind-numbingly dumb. The report doesn’t share much information on how many other Signal conversations Waltz may have been involved with. Gizmodo reached out to the White House for comment.

Since his big media glowup, Waltz hasn’t done himself any favors. In a hilarious White House press conference involving both himself and the President, Waltz stammered his way through a public non-apology in which he mumbled something about “lessons learned” before accusing the media of lying and then bragged about America taking a stand against terrorism. “Thank God for American leadership! Thank God for American strength! You’re welcome, world!” Waltz said, when Trump asked him why he had sent war plans to a journalist. Obviously a mental and verbal trainwreck, Waltz later went on Fox News and sought to dispel rumors that he and Goldberg had a previously established professional relationship. During the segment, Waltz called Goldberg the “bottom scum of journalism” while claiming he didn’t know the editor and that he had never texted with him before. He admitted, however, that he had somehow added Goldberg’s number to the group chat. Laura Ingraham, to her credit, didn’t immediately let the issue go:

Ingraham: “How did it end up on your phone?”
Waltz: “That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”
Ingraham: “That’s a pretty big problem.”
Waltz: “That is why we got the best technical minds, right?” [Waltz is presumably saying the administration has the “best technical minds” trying to figure out how he accidentally added Goldberg to the group chat]
Ingraham: “That’s disturbing.”
Waltz: “I’m sure everybody out there has had a contact, where it said one person, and then a different number.” [???]
Ingraham: “But you’ve never talked to him before, so how’s the number on your phone?”

Goldberg has come out to deny Waltz’s claim that the two didn’t know each other. “My phone number was in his phone because my phone number is in his phone,” the editor told NBC’s Meet the Press. “He’s telling everyone that he’s never met me or spoken to me—that’s simply not true. I understand why he’s doing it but this has become a somewhat farcical situation.”

Apparently, Waltz wasn’t particularly well-liked even before he accidentally invited a journalist to a secret foreign policy meeting. The Journal reports that even “before the most recent episode, Waltz had annoyed many of his colleagues by seeming imperious and expressing views that were out of line with Trump’s agenda, two administration officials said.”