There’s a narrative shift underway in the whole “Signalgate” kerfuffle. First, Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic, assured us that the Signal chat he was suspiciously included on discussed classified or top-secret war plans about the Trump administration's planned strike on Houthi rebels in Yemen. That turned out not to be true. Now, the narrative seems to be shifting away from the idea that the chat discussed classified or top-secret plans to blaming the Trump administration for using Signal in the first place.
The real issue here is how Goldberg ended up in the chat in the first place. “I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but of all the people out there, somehow this guy who has lied about the president, who has lied to Gold Star families, lied to their attorneys, and gone to the Russia hoax, gone to just all kinds of lengths to lie and smear the president of the United States, and he’s the one that somehow gets on somebody’s contact and then gets sucked into this group?” asked National Security Advisor Mike Waltz during an interview with Laura Ingraham on Fox News Tuesday evening.
I’m sure we’ll get to the bottom of that soon enough.
As for the new narrative that the Trump administration was irresponsible for using Signal at all, even Goldberg is pushing this narrative. Of course, like everything else he has claimed, this narrative is about to fall apart, too.
Related: Jeffrey Goldberg Accidentally Proved His ‘Signalgate’ Narrative Is a Hoax
“Experts have repeatedly told us that use of a Signal chat for such sensitive discussions poses a threat to national security,” Goldberg and co-writer Shane Harris claimed in an article published Wednesday, in which he shared the entirety of the chat he previously claimed contained classified information and therefore wouldn’t publish. “As a case in point, Goldberg received information on the attacks two hours before the scheduled start of the bombing of Houthi positions.”
If this information—particularly the exact times American aircraft were taking off for Yemen—had fallen into the wrong hands in that crucial two-hour period, American pilots and other American personnel could have been exposed to even greater danger than they ordinarily would face. The Trump administration is arguing that the military information contained in these texts was not classified—as it typically would be—although the president has not explained how he reached this conclusion.
Here’s the problem with this narrative. As we previously reported, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, revealed on Tuesday that Joe Biden authorized the use of Signal for government communications. The same day, CIA Director John Ratcliffe testified that the use of Signal for communications was one of the first things he was briefed about.
“So that we're clear, one of the first things that happened when I was confirmed as CIA director was Signal was loaded onto my computer at, uh, the CIA, as it is for most CIA officers,” Ratcliffe testified. “Um, one of the things that I was briefed on very early, Senator, was by the CIA records management folks about—about the use of Signal as a permissible work use. It is. That is a practice that preceded the current administration to the Biden administration.”
But here’s the real kicker. The Atlantic had previously touted Signal as “the gold standard” of secure communications.
“Confide isn’t the first secure-communications app to find popularity among politicians and their aides. Signal, the gold standard of encrypted messaging and calling, is used by staffers who work for President Trump, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio,” the magazine reported in February 2017.
Flashback to 2017, when @TheAtlantic called Signal “the gold standard of encrypted messaging” — and admitted it was used by Obama and Hillary Clinton staffers. pic.twitter.com/jfKyBsJJ7K
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 26, 2025
Oops.
Again, the anti-Trump forces are desperate to make this a scandal, yet every narrative they are pushing is falling apart.
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