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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Andrew Roth in Washington

Trump has managed to spin Signalgate as a media lapse, not a major security breach

US vice-president JD Vance, left, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, centre, and national security adviser Mike Waltz in the Oval Office
US vice-president JD Vance, left, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, centre, and national security adviser Mike Waltz were all part of the Signal chat. Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

When it comes to Trump-era scandals, the shameless responses to “Signalgate”, in which top administration officials discussing details of an impending strike in Yemen in a group chat without noticing the presence of a prominent journalist, should set alarm bells ringing for its brazenness and incompetence.

In a particularly jaw-dropping exchange, Tulsi Gabbard, the United States’ director of national intelligence, was forced to backtrack during a house hearing after she had said that there had been no specific information in the Signal chat about an impending military strike. Then, the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg published the chat in full, contradicting Gabbard’s remarks that no classified data or weapons systems had been mentioned in the chat.

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