In the USA, the scandal continues with the leakage of data from the chat in Signal. What you need to know

On March 27, the personal data of the team of US President Donald Trump became publicly available as a result of hacking databases and commercial providers. This was another blow to the reputation of the new US administration after the scandal involving the addition of a journalist to a secret chat in the Signal messenger. How such leaks became possible and how they were reacted to in the United States and Europe can be found in the Izvestia article.

What happened

On March 24, the editor of The Atlantic reported that he had accidentally been added to a group chat in the Signal messenger, where there was a discussion of the upcoming strikes on Yemen on March 15. On March 11, he received a "Signal connection request from a user who identified himself as [US National Security Adviser] Michael Waltz," and two days later he was added to a chat called Houthi PC small group. At the same time, the journalist clarified that he considered this unusual, and suggested that someone was impersonating Waltz.

Information about the strikes appeared in the chat two hours before the attacks began. The names of the participants were shortened, but the journalist was able to determine that in addition to Waltz, the group included US Vice President Jay Dee Vance, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Before the publication, The Atlantic contacted them to clarify whether the chat was genuine and to request comments. A representative of the National Security Council confirmed the authenticity of the messages.

The publication of the messages forced the Trump team to look for excuses. White House press Secretary Caroline Leavitt said that the information in the chat was not secret and did not pose a threat, and Elon Musk, the National Security Council and the office of the White House adviser joined the investigation into the situation with the addition of a journalist to the chat. Mike Waltz took full responsibility for including the journalist in the chat, and Trump stressed that he considers his team to be professional, and Waltz "learned his lesson." He also promised to conduct an investigation into the causes of the leak and publish its results. The Atlantic magazine accused the Trump administration of making "false claims" about the start of the war with the Houthis, rather than individual strikes, and Waltz suggested that the journalist could hack into the Signal chat to gain access to information.

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It became known later. that the personal data of security advisers from the Trump team was discovered in the public domain. Journalists have discovered the phone numbers, email addresses and passwords of the participants in the controversial Signal chat, Michael Waltz, Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard. The numbers were linked to accounts on social networks and messengers Discord, WhatsApp (owned by Meta, a recognized extremist organization and banned in Russia. — Ed.) and Signal.

The causes of the scandal

The US government has special secure channels for exchanging classified information, and the fact that the Trump team did not use them may mean that the new administration does not trust existing special communications channels and security personnel. The revolutionary nature of the Trump administration presupposes the abandonment of the old bureaucracy and the search for new ways of communication in power. After all, it is the bureaucrats, that is, the permanent officials, who form the basis of the deep state, the "deep state" that has opposed Trump since his first term. But at the same time, it is the bureaucracy that has the mechanisms to protect information, and therefore the president's team was not immune from such incidents.

Signal in the United States is positioned as the most secure messenger for confidential conversations, but this method of messaging was not allowed under the previous US administration for official contacts. One of the reasons why the government cannot use public messengers is the presence of the "disappearing messages" feature, while all secret messages must be preserved and documented. The court has already demanded that the chat participants ensure the safety of messages for the period March 11-15.

The reaction in the USA

The publication provoked a sharp reaction from Democrats in Congress. They said that due to the leak, American pilots were at high risk during their flights for strikes in Yemen, and demanded the resignations of high-ranking chat participants responsible for security. Representatives of the Democratic Party in the House Armed Services Committee intend to hold urgent hearings within three weeks, at which Pete Hegseth will testify.

Despite the fact that Michael Waltz actually added the journalist to the chat, the Democrats tried to put all the responsibility on the head of the Pentagon, who announced the impending strikes in a messenger. Waltz is one of the few members of the Trump team who has a negative attitude towards Russia, and it is in the interests of the Democrats to keep him in office.

Republican Senator from Mississippi and chairman of the Senate Pentagon Oversight Committee Roger Wicker has requested an expedited investigation into the incident. This was the first call for an independent investigation of the scandal by Trump's fellow party members.

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Europe's reaction

The publication of chat messages provoked a negative reaction abroad, as several negative remarks about Europeans were made in the conversation. Discussing the need for strikes for the safety of navigation in the Red Sea, Vance said that he "just really doesn't want to bail out Europe again." However, the vice president has spoken about this publicly more than once before.

Kerstin Viregge, a member of the German Bundestag from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, noted after the publication of the correspondence that the United States is no longer a reliable ally of Europe. Ed Davey, a member of the British parliament, commented on the social network X that the British intelligence services should worry about the security of their intelligence, since the US vice president and his team cannot even "handle a group chat."

Former senior British officials in the press called the incident extraordinary, but warned the authorities against renegotiating the intelligence-sharing agreement with the United States. According to them, the destruction of relations with the United States in the field of intelligence could be "nonsense", given the importance of the transatlantic partnership.

Effects

In the press, the incident was called Signalgate by analogy with the Watergate scandal, which led to the resignation of US President Richard Nixon. However, despite the fact that the leak has damaged the reputation of the Trump team and shaken the Republican Party's position in Congress, it is unlikely to expect Watergate-scale consequences. The Trump administration is pursuing a fairly straightforward policy: Trump has never hidden his intentions towards the Houthis. Now this feature of his — to warn about his steps and strictly follow promises — can play into his hands.

The incident is unlikely to affect the position of the United States in the foreign policy arena, because the Trump team openly criticized European allies, and for European countries, the assessments expressed by Hesset and Vance could not be a revelation.

During the preparation of the Izvestia material, we talked and took into account the opinions of:

• Vladimir Batyuk, an American political scientist and Chief Researcher at the Arbatov Institute of the USA and Canada (ISKRAN);
• Vladimir Mozhegov, an American political scientist;
• Dmitry Drobnitsky, an American political scientist;
• Alexey Naumov, an American, international, and INF expert.