Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard defended the Trump administration’s use of Signal while also taking aim at Biden-era officials for doing exactly the same in an interview Friday.
“Limited use of end-to-end encrypted apps like Signal is not only authorized under this administration, it was used prolifically under the Biden administration as well,” Gabbard said on Fox & Friends.
She added the platform remains “the most secure form of communication” provided it’s not used “to communicate classified information” before going on to claim she had been “told by people who have first-hand experience” that Biden administration officials like former National Security Adviser and ex-Secretary of State Jake Sullivan and Antony Blinken “communicated prolifically and in great detail using the Signal app.”
“Which is interesting,” she went on. “Because the Democrats on the committee and the people who’ve been talking about this have never questioned or acknowledged that fact, even though we know that they know.”
Her comments come hot on the heels of a raft of embarrassing Signal-related leaks and blunders over the past few weeks.
The so-called “Signalgate” scandal first broke last month after The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was accidentally added to a group chat on the messaging platform in which 17 top members of the Trump administration—including Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Gabbard herself—shared highly sensitive details of imminent missile strikes against Yemen.
In the weeks since, it has also emerged that Hegseth communicated further details of those plans to his lawyer, brother, and wife via another secret group chat on the app, in addition to having bypassed Pentagon security protocols to install the messaging platform on his office computer.
“It’s just practical,” Gabbard said of the White House’s continued use of the app. “We have to be able to communicate, and that is the most secure way to communicate. Obviously, carefully, limited, but we have to have options.”
guttanzer on April 26th, 2025 at 20:54 UTC »
"as long as the conversations are not classified'
Signal is a step up from plain email, but Gmail's secure mode is just as good. The fact that private sector encrypted information services exist and are convenient is not relevant.
THE CONVERSATIONS THEY HAD WERE CLASSIFIED. SHE WAS A PARTICIPANT AS THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE. Her job is literally to set and enforce policy on classified information. The information they passed around was classic TOP SECRET, SCI stuff. Information leaks at this level are BY DEFINITION capable of causing grave damage to the national security of the USA. SHE IS AN ACCOMPLICE TO SERIOUS CRIMES. Who gives AF what she says? I mean, aside from the fact that she still has her job when she should have been marched out of the building to the curb within hours. This may be unrelated to her hearing, but Hegseth set up a chat room with uncleared people with absolutely no need to know and gave them time-sensitive TS/SCI updates. He should have been frog marched to jail in handcuffs.On a more human note, much of that damage would be loss of military lives. Hegseth, Gabbard, and a few others are former military. If you know the culture you know how unforgivable that is.
It's infinitely worse because they are announcing that the security policy of this administration does think their lives are important, and is not seriously concerned with mission success. The new policy is maximal impact on social media. WTF? I've been closely associated with the DOD/IC world for almost half a century. I have never seen ANYONE in that world stuck on appearances.
mkt853 on April 26th, 2025 at 20:21 UTC »
Didn't Hegseth install it on his own computer? Biden probably doesn't know much about Signal or computers in general, so how would this be his fault? Biden also hasn't been president since January and we're heading into May already. At some point blaming the guy that was president over three months ago just makes you look dumb.
Pepsiman34 on April 26th, 2025 at 20:21 UTC »
This administration is a joke.