US attorney general unlikely to open criminal investigation of Signal leak – report
The New York Times reports on remarks by Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, who the paper said “signaled” that there will be no criminal investigation of “Signalgate” – the scandal over the sharing of sensitive information about airstrikes in Yemen on a group chat which contained a top Washington journalist.
“It was sensitive information, not classified, and inadvertently released,” Bondi told reporters in Virginia “while praising the military operation that ensued”, the Times said.
“What we should be talking about is, it was a very successful mission.”
Bondi also said: “If you want to talk about classified information, talk about what was in Hillary Clinton’s home. Talk about the classified documents in Joe Biden’s garage, that Hunter Biden had access to.”
People have indeed been talking about such episodes, particularly the saga over Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state between 2009 and 2013, which Republicans notably including Donald Trump used as a bludgeon against Clinton when she ran against Trump in the presidential election of 2016.
Observers have also noted Trump’s own problems regarding the handling of classified information after leaving the White House in 2021, which resulted in criminal charges only laid aside after he won the election last year.
Biden also faced scrutiny over his handling of classified information after leaving office, in his case as vice-president between 2009 and 2017. Unlike Trump, Biden was not charged though a scathing report did real political damage. The former president’s son, Hunter Biden, was found guilty on tax and guns charges before his father pardoned him on his way out of office.
Key events
The US Department of Justice has proposed merging the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the Washington Post reports.
The Post said it obtained a memo proposing the move and other reforms. Unnamed justice department officials were said to have “stressed” that the DEA-ATF merger, like other reforms, was not a done deal.
Other possible reforms, the Post said, included transferring an office that deals with international law enforcement to the US marshals service.
“The memo does not detail how the changes would be implemented and what, if any, functions of the affected offices would be eliminated,” the Post said, on a day when elsewhere in the federal government, US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr announced 10,000 layoffs, an approach consistent with the Trump administration’s brutal slashing of federal departments, under the eye of Elon Musk and his so-called “department of government efficiency”, or Doge.
“Many of the proposals reflect the public priorities of the Trump administration,” the Post said about the justice department memo it obtained. “For example, the memo floats reducing the number of attorneys working on investigations and prosecutions related to the Foreign Agents Registration Act.”
As controversy over “Signalgate” continues through a fourth day, Hugo Lowell and Joseph Gedeon consider what this very Washington controversy really means …
The problem with the now infamous Signal chat read around the world is not just that sensitive military-operations details were broadcast, but that this reveals a pattern of what appears to be institutional dishonesty inside the Trump administration and the legal ramifications that presents.
While the national security sphere operating in secret is nothing new, the leak exposes a system of broken accountability, where high-ranking officials can spill military secrets with apparent near-total immunity. Despite potential violations of classification protocols, federal record-keeping laws and promises of operational security, the leaders look to face no meaningful legal consequences.
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, and the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, have doubled down on the administration’s position that none of the messages in the Signal chat were classified, claiming they amounted to a “team update” that did not name intelligence-collection sources or methods.
But Brian Finucane, a former state department attorney with extensive experience in counter-terrorism and military operations, including deliberating and advising on past US military strikes against the Houthis in Yemen, said the specificity of the information about the aircraft types suggests it was classified.
“If I had seen that sort of information beforehand, that was shared with the special operation, in my experience, it would have been classified,” Finucane said. “I can’t guarantee what the state of the information was that Hegseth shared, but in my experience, this kind of pre-operational detail would have been classified.”
Full story:
US attorney general unlikely to open criminal investigation of Signal leak – report
The New York Times reports on remarks by Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, who the paper said “signaled” that there will be no criminal investigation of “Signalgate” – the scandal over the sharing of sensitive information about airstrikes in Yemen on a group chat which contained a top Washington journalist.
“It was sensitive information, not classified, and inadvertently released,” Bondi told reporters in Virginia “while praising the military operation that ensued”, the Times said.
“What we should be talking about is, it was a very successful mission.”
Bondi also said: “If you want to talk about classified information, talk about what was in Hillary Clinton’s home. Talk about the classified documents in Joe Biden’s garage, that Hunter Biden had access to.”
People have indeed been talking about such episodes, particularly the saga over Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state between 2009 and 2013, which Republicans notably including Donald Trump used as a bludgeon against Clinton when she ran against Trump in the presidential election of 2016.
Observers have also noted Trump’s own problems regarding the handling of classified information after leaving the White House in 2021, which resulted in criminal charges only laid aside after he won the election last year.
Biden also faced scrutiny over his handling of classified information after leaving office, in his case as vice-president between 2009 and 2017. Unlike Trump, Biden was not charged though a scathing report did real political damage. The former president’s son, Hunter Biden, was found guilty on tax and guns charges before his father pardoned him on his way out of office.
Summary of the day so far
As we’re halfway through the day in Washington and other places affected by what goes on in Washington, here’s a brief rundown of significant stories in US politics today:
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“Signalgate”, the scandal over how a journalist was added to a group chat about US airstrikes in Yemen, drags on. Two senators have demanded a Pentagon investigation into the affair, while Guardian reporting from Hugo Lowell suggests Donald Trump does not plan to give his political opponents or the media a scalp, whether Mike Waltz, the national security adviser who set up the chat and added Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg to it, or Pete Hegseth, the Fox News host turned defense secretary who shared sensitive information.
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In a related development, Waltz abruptly made his Venmo account private after Wired was first to report that it was public, showing contacts including White House officials and prominent journalists, and, experts said, exposing his account to malign actors.
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Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, said he will cut around 10,000 jobs at his department, saying: “We aren’t just reducing bureaucratic sprawl. We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic.”
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Amid Trump’s blizzard of tariff announcements, newly released data shows airline travel between Canada and the US is “collapsing”, with flight bookings between the two countries down by over 70%.
Speaking of tariffs, here’s some further lunchtime reading:
Away from “Signalgate”, in a hearing room on Capitol Hill, Paul Atkins, Donald Trump’s pick to lead the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), has been facing senators in a confirmation hearing.
In prepared remarks, the chief executive of Patomak Global Partners said: “The current regulatory environment for our financial system inhibits investment and too often punishes success. Unclear, overly politicized, complicated, and burdensome regulations are stifling capital formation, while American investors are flooded with disclosures that do the opposite of helping them understand the true risks of an investment. It is time to reset priorities and return common sense to the SEC.”
Atkins is yet another Trump nominee drawn from the world of the extremely rich. On Wednesday, Reuters reported that he had disclosed “personal assets held jointly with his wife valued at more than $328m”.
Reuters went on: “The SEC is set to hemorrhage workers under voluntary buyouts offered by the White House, which come as officials say the agency was already stretched thin. Atkins, who was an SEC commissioner from 2002 to 2008, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However, a spokesperson for the Trump presidential transition said Atkins was in full compliance with ethics and disclosure requirements. If confirmed, Mr Atkins will consult with the SEC’s ethics officer and act in accordance with the governing regulations during his term at the SEC,” the spokesperson said.
Atkins’ disclosures revealed $6m in crypto-related assets – not something to please Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic senator from Massachussetts. In a letter to Atkins on Sunday, Warren posited “significant conflicts of interest” ahead, and said: “You … have served as an expert witness hired by Wall Street firms accused of engaging in Ponzi schemes and other misconduct that you would now be responsible for investigating as SEC chair. Furthermore, you have served as a Board Advisor to the Digital Chamber, a registered lobbying group for the crypto industry. In these roles, you and your firm were paid by the same companies that you would now be responsible for regulating.
“This will raise serious concerns about your impartiality and commitment to serving the public interest if you are confirmed to serve as the next SEC chair.”
Some related reading:
Adam Gabbatt
Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser who is at the center of the storm over a group chat that leaked highly sensitive military plans to a journalist, left his Venmo account open to the public, according to a new report.
The oversight represents a further security breach, days after the news that Waltz added the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic to a Signal chat in which operational planning for a US attack on Houthis in Yemen was shared.
A Venmo account with the name “Michael Waltz”, which bore a picture of Waltz, was visible to the public until Wednesday afternoon, Wired reported. Waltz’s 328-person list of friends included accounts that appeared to belong to Walker Barrett, a National Security Council staffer, and Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff – whose account was also public.
Full story:
Leon Panetta, who served Democratic presidents as White House chief of staff, US defense secretary and CIA director, thinks someone should be fired over the “Signalgate” scandal:
“There’s no question that this is a serious breach of national security,” Panetta, 86, told CNN.
“For goodness sakes, this was an attack plan that carries, I think, the highest classification. It certainly did when I was secretary of defense, any kind of attack plan was top secret and had to be protected. And here it was not only put on a Signal commercial network, which is not cleared for confidential communications, but they also included a journalist in a list of very top national security officials who then was exposed to this kind of information.
“This is a serious breach. It needs to be investigated because it could have cost lives. It could have cost us a military mission, and it certainly costs us harm to our national security. It needs to be investigated, and the responsible individual who committed these offenses needs to be punished and fired.”
Mike Waltz, the national security adviser, set up the Signal chat and invited the Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg. Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, shared sensitive information. Donald Trump has backed both men. Both have denied wrongdoing and heaped abuse on Goldberg.
Panetta said he had “been around in Washington for a long time. The biggest problem in Washington, often times, is the truth, and when there are those that don’t want to acknowledge the truth, it will come back to undermine them in the future.
We have the truth here. We all know what happened here. There’s no mystery here. This is not rocket science. This was an attack plan that was leaked and could have potentially harmed our forces in the attack. There’s no question that this was an attack plan. There was talk of weapons, the talk of targets, timing, deployment. This is an attack plan, and it should not have been put on that kind of communication.
“Frankly, this is the kind of thing that ought to be handled in the National Security Council, a situation room, that’s where it should be handled. But it wasn’t. And now, I think what it does is it puts us in danger, because our enemies are going to be all over this. You know, they’ve seen us fail to protect our most sensitive information. They’re going to be all over the internet. They’re going to be all over Signal. They’re going to be trying to get the information that was available that put upon this mission, that that really does harm our national security. And it’s for that reason that, frankly, Republicans and Democrats ought to be concerned about making sure that this never happens again.”
Asked if he thought US allies would increasingly question whether to share information with the US, Panetta said: “One of the most important things when I was director of the CIA was our relationship with our allies and with those that we could share information with, because getting that kind of information helped us protect the country.
“I think, as a result of showing that we are careless in the way we’re handling highly classified information, that there are going to be a lot of countries that think twice about whether or not they’re going to share sensitive intelligence with the United States.
“That’s going to hurt us.”
Here’s a Guardian interview with Panetta from January with a headline that now seems somewhat optimistic:
A little more from Mike Rounds, the Republican senator from South Dakota who spoke to CNN about Signalgate and bipartisan congressional demands for investigations into how national security information came to be shared on a chat group containing a top journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic.
“We work together,” Rounds said, shortly after Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the chair of the Senate armed services committee, and Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking Democrat, demanded a Pentagon investigation.
“We recognize the seriousness of this indiscretion, and we’re going to get the inspector general’s report we’ve asked for … and that means the bottom line, we want as much information as we can get, and then we’ll do our own assessment.
“But right now, I think they screwed up. I think they know they screwed up. I think they also learned their lesson, and I think the president made it very clear to them that this is a lesson they don’t want to forget.”
Mike Rounds, a Republican from South Dakota, is on the Senate armed services and intelligence committees. He just spoke to CNN about the “Signalgate” scandal about top national security officials’ sharing of sensitive information about air strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Earlier this week, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, and John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, testified before the Senate intelligence committee. Both denied breaking the law or revealing classified information.
Asked if he thought Gabbard and Ratcliffe had told the truth under oath, Rounds did not give a resounding yes:
“I think they were doing their best to try to get past the committee hearing,” he said.
Mike Waltz, the national security adviser, set up the Signal chat and invited the Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg. Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, shared sensitive information. Donald Trump has backed both men. Both men have angrily denied wrongdoing and heaped abuse on Goldberg.
Rounds continued: “Look, these folks made a mistake, and they’re having a very difficult time trying to explain how they made the mistake. They made a mistake. I just hope they’ve learned their lesson. I think the president probably took a number of them to the woodshed.”
Rounds said Trump “made it clear in his statement that he was not happy with the way this thing turned out, in part because in the middle of a mission that was hugely successful … to have that overshadowed because they started talking way too early about what was going on in the Middle East and doing it on Signal where they really should not have done that.
“And so I think the president probably made it clear to a number of them that this is not going to happen again in front of the committee. I think a number of my colleagues, on a bipartisan basis, kind of sent the same message, and I know that we’re going to have an inspector general look at this thing and give us a classified annex report as well, but on a bipartisan basis, Republicans and Democrats, we will have another meeting on this, and we will discuss it with them.”
The request to the acting inspector general for an investigation was made by the armed services chair, Roger Wicker, and ranking Democrat, Jack Reed, on Thursday morning.
Bipartisan letter to Pentagon inspector general implores investigation into Signal group chat leak
The Republican chair and ranking Democrat on the Senate armed services committee have written to the acting inspector general of the Department of Defense, to demand an investigation of “Signalgate”, the scandal over how a journalist was added to a group chat in which top national security officials shared details of airstrikes in Yemen.
Addressing Steven A Stebbins, Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Jack Reed of Rhode Island write: “On 11 March 2025, Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, was reportedly included on a group chat on the commercially available communications application called Signal, which included members of the National Security Council.
This chat was alleged to have included classified information pertaining to sensitive military actions in Yemen. If true, this reporting raises questions as to the use of unclassified networks to discuss sensitive and classified information, as well as the sharing of such information with those who do not have proper clearance and need to know.
The senators go on to demand an assessment of facts and circumstances, and of “any remedial actions taken as a result”; a summary of Pentagon policies regarding such breaches of policies and processes; an assessment of whether other departments’ have different policies on the subject; an assessment of whether classified information was leaked through the Signal chat; and “any recommendations to address potential issues identified”.
The senators also say they will schedule a briefing from Stebbins.
Stebbins is in the Pentagon inspector general role in an acting capacity because Donald Trump fired his predecessor amid a round of such terminations in January – a highly controversial move given the notionally independent status of such officials.
Mike Waltz, the national security adviser who set up the Signal chat and added Goldberg, and Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary who shared sensitive material, have denied wrongdoing and attacked Goldberg and the Atlantic.
The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that Trump is not minded to sack anyone over the scandal.
Another Republican member of the Senate armed services committee, Mike Rounds of South Dakota, just spoke to CNN. More to come.
As Hugo Lowell reports (see post here and full story here), Donald Trump is sticking by his men in the “Signalgate” scandal, reluctant to give the mainstream media or his political enemies the satisfaction of claiming a scalp.
Today, the president’s schedule shows an intelligence briefing at 11am, an executive order signing session at 2pm, a White House session with a group of podcasters, and at 8pm the White House Iftar dinner, an annual celebration of and for Muslim Americans which Joe Biden had to cancel last year, when US support for Israel’s war in Gaza prompted many guests to decline invitations.
Trump hasn’t been particularly busy on social media – at least not since the small hours of the morning, when posts included a rant about James Boasberg, the federal judge Trump wants impeached, over rulings concerning the invocation of the Aliens and Enemies Act of 1798, in relation to deportations of alleged (but not proven) undocumented criminals.
Boasberg has been assigned to a lawsuit concerning the Signal leak. Trump wrote, in part: “How disgraceful is it that ‘Judge’ James Boasberg has just been given a fourth ‘Trump Case,’ something which is, statistically, IMPOSSIBLE. There is no way for a Republican, especially a TRUMP REPUBLICAN, to win before him. He is Highly Conflicted, not only in his hatred of me — Massive Trump Derangement Syndrome! — but also, because of disqualifying family conflicts.”
Trump, the likely direct author of the post, given its length, timing and extensive use of capitals, continued without identifying the alleged “family conflicts” he claimed. (Rightwing media has more.)
Trump also complained about NPR and PBS, which he wants Republicans in Congress to defund, and the European Union and Canada, targets of his newly announced automotive industry tariffs.
This morning, Trump heralded the arrest of “a major leader of MS-13”, a criminal gang with roots in El Salvador. Then he returned to attacking Judge Boasberg … and Politico and former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.
Later, the attorney general, Pam Bondi, spoke to reporters about the MS-13 arrest, which she said involved a “top” leader of the gang in the US, “right here in Virginia, living half an hour outside of Washington, DC”. No name was given – court documents should show that later.
El Salvador has been the destination for US deportation flights at issue in Trump’s clash with Judge Boasberg. Here’s a heartbreaking report from the Dallas Morning News, about a deportee who insists on his innocence and his family’s grief.
