Signalgate: A crack in the facade?

March 27, 2025

There are several important stories to discuss on Thursday—most of which are positive developments for those seeking to defend the rule of law. But Signalgate is metastasizing in a way that poses a significant political risk for the Trump administration.

Although it is more serious than Watergate, changes in the political landscape preclude an administration-ending scandal. But the scandal is proving too much for the most loyal of Trump's defenders.

According to reporting from the Hill,

“[T]op Republican senators are calling for various committees to investigate the leak, including the Senate armed services committee and the Senate intelligence committee. The Mississippi senator Roger Wicker, who chairs the armed services committee, told the Hill he would be asking the defense department’s inspector general to investigate the scandal.”

Anything that can push Trump onto his back foot and reinforce the (accurate) perception that Trump's administration is a dumpster fire in an explosives plant will help us resist his agenda of destruction and revenge.

The negative political developments for Trump are compounded by continuing losses in court and surging protest activity that is rallying the grassroots and Democratic base. The Signalgate scandal has even roused congressional Democrats to go on the offensive against Trump.

Let’s take a look at these stories.

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Signalgate gets worse—and will continue to do so.

The Trump administration shot itself in the foot on Tuesday by declaring that nothing in the Signal chat chain was classified and that there were no “war plans” in the thread. They also called Jeffrey Goldberg a big liar, leaving him no choice but to publish the Signal text chain in full, proving that it was the Trump administration that was lying. Read the full text chain in The Atlantic, Here Are the Attack Plans That Trump’s Advisers Shared on Signal. (Accessible to all.)

As is readily apparent from the text published in The Atlantic, Pete Hegseth cut-and-pasted detailed (and typo-free) complicated attack plans in the text chain about two hours before the first bombs were scheduled to fall in Yemen.

Given the complexity of the attack plans, Hegseth could not have typed those plans into the Signal app on his phone—demonstrating that he borrowed the attack plans from another confidential source and pasted them into a non-secure source. See analysis by FP Wellman on Substack, On Democracy, DOD has deployed Signal on government devices overriding their own policy. [This is an excellent overview and analysis of the Signal-gate scandal. I highly recommend it to your attention.]

Confronted with irrefutable proof of their lies, administration officials then pivoted to the pathetic defense that the “attack plans” were not “war plans”—a distinction that is meaningless to the lives of the US pilots that Hegseth endangered. Moreover, as I explained in too much detail yesterday, the relevant statutes prohibit sharing of “national defense information,” not “classified information” or “war plans.”

The semantic defense floated by Sec. Defense Hegseth, DNI Gabbard, and NSA Waltz was greeted by derisive laughter and contempt. Indeed, the weakness of the defense suggests that Waltz and Hegseth may be on thin ice with Trump as they scramble for meaningless soundbites for Fox’s talking heads.

And commentators and congressional Democrats began attacking the flimsy excuses and terminology floated by the administration on Tuesday. Each of us should be able to explain the following:

The fact that Signal is “encrypted” is meaningless. Signal messages are encrypted only during transmission across the internet. The messages are not encrypted on the sender’s phone or the receiver’s phone—otherwise users would not be able to read the messages. But if those phones are not “secured devices,” then someone who has planted malware on the phone can read the unencrypted messages on the unsecured phones.

Indeed, we have learned the Kash Patel, Tulsi Gabbard, and Steve Witkoff (at least) were using personal phones to receive Signal messages. See FP Wellman’s article, above.) Their personal phones presumably have other commercial apps—like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, iMessage, Fitbit, and The Weather Channel that are not secure.

It is not enough for the messages to be encrypted. Federal law and DoD policy require the use of secured devices—government-issued devices that do not permit the use of third-party apps and have an operating system that is not subject to attack by hackers.

The use of personal phones is a HUGE hole in the cybersecurity defenses of the DoD, CIA, etc. Information regarding personal cellphones is readily available on the internet. See Newsweek, Trump Officials' Private Contact Information Was Found Online: Reports.

Per Newsweek,

German news outlet Der Spiegel reported Wednesday that it was able to find phone numbers, email addresses, and in some cases, passwords for top officials including Hegseth, national security adviser Mike Waltz and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

Der Spiegel reported that many of the numbers and email addresses that were freely available on the internet still appear to be in use, and in some cases linked to social media accounts and LinkedIn profiles. The outlet found that some of the numbers are also linked to WhatsApp profiles and Signal accounts.

Per Der Spiegel, its reporters were able to find personal information for Mike Waltz, Pete Hegseth, and Tulsi Gabbard. Until Wednesday morning, anyone using Venmo could see payments on the cash app from Mike Waltz to his “Venmo friends.” (In doing so, Waltz allowed the world to see friends and businesses to whom he sent money via the Venmo app.) Waltz is the National Security Advisor to Trump. The first thing Waltz should do is tell Trump that Waltz, Hegseth, and Gabbard are national security risks who should be fired immediately!

If Waltz, Hegseth, and Gabbard used personal phones to share information about attack plans, it is a near certainty that China and Russia were able to read the un-encrypted messages on the personal cell phones. See NBC News, How Signal app Hegseth used can leave door open to hackers.

Per NBC,

Just because Signal protects messages in transit doesn’t mean it protects its users from other types of snooping. A person who gains full access to a person’s unlocked phone, either remotely with sophisticated hacking software or by physically acquiring it, can simply read a decrypted Signal message.

As FP Wellman reported in his On Democracy article, above, it appears that the use of Signal is a widespread practice in the Department of Defense in order to “communicate with the White House.”

Therefore, we should assume that foreign hackers have read every message between the White House and the Department of Defense over the last 63 days.

US allies should think twice about sharing any information with a bunch of amateurs who are too self-important to use secured devices and established protocols to protect national defense information. See op-ed in The Telegraph (UK) by Janet Daley, Atlantic Signal texts: America has ceased to be leader of the free world. Daley writes,

[W] hat about the future of our security operations? Do we continue to supply highly sensitive intelligence to a White House which holds us in contempt and might just accidentally broadcast critical information to random contacts?

Finally, we must not forget that the administration-wide use of Signal is an effort to violate federal record preservation laws—efforts that are illegal and subject to severe fines and punishment. See Just Security, Signal Gate: The Criminal Law Precedents That Are Most Relevant.

As Professor Timothy Snyder writes in his Substack blog, Thinking About,

Signal is attractive not because it is secure with respect to foreign adversaries, which it is not, but because it is secure with respect to American citizens and American judges.

The autodelete function, which Mike Waltz was using, violates the law. But what is most essential is the purpose of that law: to protect the rights of Americans from their government.

The timed deletion function allows American officials to be confident that their communications will never be recorded and that they can therefore conspire without any chance of their actions being known to citizens at the time or at any later point.

Enterprising reporters can smell another Watergate in the offing. Because Mike Waltz left payments to his “Venmo friends” exposed to the world until Wednesday morning, you know that there is more private information lurking out there on the internet. And the internet is forever. It remembers. Waltz undoubtedly has a team of experts scraping the internet to remove information about his personal and public life, but much of the internet is archived daily.

This story isn’t going to go away. And given the rank amateurishness and smug arrogance of those in the Trump administration, the chickens are going to come home to roost. Bigly. Stay tuned.

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On the legal front

There were several positive developments on the legal front on Wednesday.

DC Circuit Court of Appeals upholds Judge Boasberg’s temporary restraining order regarding Venezuelan migrants deported to El Salvador.

See Talking Points Memo, Appeals Court Keeps Trump’s Alien Enemies Act Deportations On Hold.

Per TPM, the panel split 2-1, with a Trump appointed judge in dissent. (Of course.) TPM writes,

[Judge] Henderson, who didn’t ask any questions during Monday’s oral arguments but wrote for the majority, emphasized that the government does not have the power to sidestep judicial review as it resurrects the rarely used war powers under which it’s expelling foreign nationals without notice or hearing.

“Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act than has happened here,” Millett said during oral arguments. “These people weren’t given notice, they weren’t told where they were going.”

The Supreme Court is the next stop.

In separate but potentially related news, the MAGA reactionary bloc of justices may be drifting apart. In a high-profile case involving the question of delegation of congressional power, two members of that reactionary supermajority signaled that they may vote with the justices still willing to maintain the checks and balances embedded in the Constitution. See Ian Millhiser in Vox, Kavanaugh and Barrett appear likely to break with the Supreme Court’s MAGA wing.

Law School Deans Speak Out

The Deans of 79 law schools issued a letter (which is oddly posted only on Georgetown Law’s LinkedIn site), that says, in part,

Today, Georgetown Law Dean William M. Treanor joined 79 law school deans in signing the letter posted below, issued March 26, 2025:

As deans of law schools, we have a special responsibility for the legal profession. Recently, the federal government has imposed significant sanctions on the law firms of Perkins Coie, Covington & Burling, Paul Weiss, and Jenner & Block seemingly because of the clients they and their lawyers represented and litigation in which their lawyers participated.

We write to reaffirm basic principles: The government should not punish lawyers and law firms for the clients they represent, absent specific findings that such representation was illegal or unethical. Punishing lawyers for their representation and advocacy violates the First Amendment and undermines the Sixth Amendment.

If anyone can find a publicly available URL with a complete signatories list, I would appreciate hearing from you. Notably absent from the letter as signatories are Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and Columbia. Alumni? Light up those phones!

Local Bar Associations Condemn Trump’s attack on the legal profession

Also, more than 50 regional and local bar assocaitions have joined the ABA in condemning Trump's targeting of the legal profession in general, and Perkins Coie and Covington & Burling, in particular. See ABA, more than 50 bar associations condemn 'government actions that seek to twist the scales of justice'.

Notably missing from the above list is the Los Angeles County Bar Association, which is the largest metropolitan bar association in the US. LA lawyers? Light up those phones!

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Trump announces 25% auto tariffs

In another move that will punish US consumers, Trump announced 25% tariffs on all imported autos. See Business Insider, Stock Market Today: Tesla Drops 6%, Tech Falls on Looming Auto Tariffs.

Per the WSJ,

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called the tariffs a direct attack on Canadian workers. He said Canadian officials would decide what actions to take, including possible retaliatory tariffs, after seeing the language of Trump’s executive order.

“It’s clear that this is a violation, and he has betrayed our trade agreement,” said Carney, who has just begun an election campaign that will culminate in an April 28 vote.

If Canada retaliates, the move will hurt US automakers and union workers. Canada is one of the few auto manufacturing nations that imports more autos from the US than it exports into the US.

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ICE uses kidnapping-style tactics to arrest Tufts student in US on visa from Turkey

In a truly disturbing use of kidnapping-style tactics, ICE agents approached and arrested a Tufts student in the US on a visa from Turkey. The ICE agents drove unmarked cars, wore plainclothes / hoodies, and covered their faces with masks. See AP, Watch: Masked ICE officials detain Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk.

As usual, ICE is not providing family or lawyers with information about the student’s location after arrest—another favorite tactic of dictatorial regimes across the nation.

The student, Rumeysa Ozturk, had co-signed an op-ed in the Tuft’s student newspaper. The editorial criticized Tuft’s administration for its response to a student union call to criticize the war in Gaza as genocide. Per AP:

Ozturk was one of four students last March who wrote an op-ed in The Tufts Daily criticizing the university’s response to its community union Senate passing resolutions that demanded Tufts “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,” disclose its investments and divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel.

ICE issued a statement claiming that Ozturk had engaged in activities supporting Hamas, although it did not describe any such activities.

Students at Tufts organized a protest in a nearby park and a federal judge issued an order requiring ICE to keep Ozturk in Massachusetts. It appears that ICE has already transported the student to Louisiana.

The use of plain-clothed, masked groups of agents to whisk people off the street is disturbing and inimical to a free society. It appears that Trump has ordered the immigration laws to be enforced in way that strikes terror in the hearts of student visa-holders, immigrants, and US citizens alike. Despicable.

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Concluding Thoughts.

We have gained a small foothold with an issue that could put Trump on the defensive. We must exploit that advantage with everything we can muster. We must portray Hegseth, Gabbard, and Waltz (at least) as incompetent liars and dangerous amateurs who are risking the lives of US military personnel.

Add slogans that call out Hegseth, Gabbard, and Waltz when you protest. Demand their resignations. Say that their actions endangered the lives of US pilots. Say that we cannot trust them with plans to attack a small band of rebels in Yemen let alone the nuclear codes to the US arsenal.

Attacking Trump on one vulnerability increases our leverage in other areas. The results of the elections in Pennsylvania on Tuesday demonstrate that there is a broad-based anger over the destruction and cruelty of Trump's attack on the government. Signalgate is another link in the chain of events that will undermine Trump's unholy grip on congressional Republicans.

Keep up the good work!

Talk to you tomorrow!

Daily Dose of Perspective

The Black Eye Galaxy is 17 million light years from Earth. Its behavior is strange. The gas in the interior circles in the opposite direction from the gas in the outer regions of the galaxy. The bizarre behavior likely resulted from the merger of two galaxies millions of years ago.

Enjoy!