Latest news with #FederalRecordsAct
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump's Next National Security Adviser Might Be His Worst Ally
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller may be up next for a new position in Donald Trump's administration: Axios reported Friday that he's a top candidate to replace Mike Waltz, Trump's departing national security adviser. Miller, the ghoulish white nationalist behind the president's anti-immigrant crusade, is already serving as the president's adviser on Homeland Security; reportedly he runs the Homeland Security Council 'like clockwork.' Miller has already been working with the National Security Council, running what The Atlantic reported was the 'most active and well-staffed' section on homeland security, which at times operated entirely independently from the leadership office previously run by Waltz. It worked so well that Alex Wong, Waltz's deputy, expressed concerns about the perceived split between the two factions. It's unlikely that Miller's work as a homeland security adviser wouldn't stop him from taking on an additional role: right now, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has four. The secretary is also serving as the head of what remains of the United States Agency for International Development and the acting archivist at the National Archives and Records Administration—and in doing so, has found himself leading both an agency that has violated the Federal Records Act and the one that is meant to ensure that doesn't happen. Two White House sources told Axios that Miller's work with Rubio made him well-suited for the role. Another said that the fiery advocate had already expressed his interest in taking on the job, and another said that 'if Stephen wants the job, it's hard to see why Trump wouldn't say yes.' In recent weeks, Miller has been a fierce advocate for the Trump administration's immigration policies—sometimes too fierce—and has set off on unhinged rants during multiple television interviews and addresses.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump Gave Marco Rubio Another Job—but Doesn't Seem to Have Told Him
Donald Trump's announcement Thursday that Secretary of State Marco Rubio would replace Mike Waltz to serve as the interim national security adviser appears to have taken the State Department completely by surprise. When a reporter asked State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce during a press briefing about Rubio's new role, she was visibly caught unawares. 'It is clear that I just heard this from you,' Bruce said. A flustered Bruce couldn't answer questions about the announcement, clearly reeling. 'Well, I have some insights as to the potential of certain things that might happen,' she vamped. 'You can have a general sense of what's possible, and then you see that manifest usually, but I think that one thing certainly that I have learned is that things don't happen until the president says they're going to happen,' she added, another incredible non-statement. Bruce admitted she'd been caught off guard, incredulously attributing Trump's sudden announcement to 'the miracle of modern technology.' If the State Department's spokesperson wasn't made aware of the announcement, it's likely that Trump's decision was not given much time to marinate at the State Department, raising questions about whether Rubio had any advance notice at all that he'd be taking on yet another government job. Rubio now wears several hats for the Trump administration. The secretary is also serving as the head of what remains of USAID and the acting archivist at the National Archives and Records Administration—and in doing so, has found himself leading both an agency that has violated the Federal Records Act and the one that is meant to ensure that doesn't happen. Bruce's apparent shock also raised even more questions about the circumstances surrounding Waltz's sudden departure earlier Thursday. The former national security adviser, who was responsible for precipitating the Signalgate scandal that rocked the White House, will now serve as Trump's ambassador to the United Nations.
Miami Herald
21-04-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Report: Hegseth Shared Attack Plans in 2nd Signal Chat Sparks Critics' Fury
According to a Sunday report from The New York Times, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared "detailed information" about forthcoming strikes in Yemen on March 15 in a private Signal group chat that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer. Four people with knowledge of the chat told the Times the information included flight schedules for F/A-18 Hornets targeting Houthi rebels in Yemen-essentially the same attack plans the defense secretary shared on a separate Signal chat that mistakenly included an editor from The Atlantic the same day. Newsweek reached out to the Department of Defense via email for comment on Sunday. The reported existence of a second Signal chat in which Hegseth allegedly shared highly sensitive military information is the latest in a series of developments that have put his management and judgment under scrutiny. President Donald Trump's top national security officials including Hegseth previously discussed U.S. military plans in Yemen on a Signal chat group that included The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg. Details of U.S. military operations are not supposed to be conducted over publicly available platforms such as Signal, and a number of security experts have said the chat group could have violated the Espionage Act. Officials on the chat group faced bipartisan criticism including a lawsuit from nonpartisan watchdog group American Oversight, which alleged breaches of the Federal Records Act and the Administrative Procedure Act by conducting government business on a platform which erases communications. Jennifer Rauchet Hegseth: The defense secretary's wife is a former Fox News producer who is not a Defense Department employee. She has traveled with her husband overseas and drawn criticism for accompanying him to sensitive meetings with foreign leaders. Rauchet was a producer on Fox and Friends, a show that Hegseth began co-hosting in 2017. She is Hegseth's third wife and the couple shares a 7-year-old daughter. Phil Hegseth: The defense secretary's brother works at the Pentagon as a senior adviser to Hegseth and is a liaison between the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon. His role involves interfacing with agencies like the U.S. Coast Guard and Homeland Security Investigations. Phil recently joined his brother aboard a Pentagon aircraft during an Indo-Pacific tour. His previous experience includes founding a podcast production company, managing digital media at the conservative Hudson Institute, and working with his brother at Concerned Veterans for America where he earned $108,000 as a media consultant. Timothy C. Parlatore: Hegseth's personal lawyer was directly commissioned as a Navy commander in the Judge Advocate General's Corps as a reservist in a Pentagon ceremony on March 5. Parlatore previously gained prominence as part of Trump's legal defense team after the president was charged with multiple felonies in the classified documents case. Unlike the previously reported Signal chat created by national security adviser Mike Waltz, this newly revealed one was allegedly created by Hegseth, the newspaper reported. It included his wife Jennifer and about a dozen other people from his personal and professional inner circle in January, before his confirmation as defense secretary, and was named "Defense | Team Huddle," the people familiar with the chat told the Times. He instead used his private phone rather than his government one to access the Signal chat. Hegseth created the separate Signal group initially as a forum for discussing routine administrative or scheduling information, two people familiar with the chat said. The anonymous sources told the Times that Hegseth typically did not use the chat to discuss sensitive military operations and said it did not include other Cabinet-level officials. Another person familiar with the chat said Hegseth's aides had warned him a day or two before the Yemen strikes not to discuss such sensitive operational details in the group chat, which, while encrypted, is not considered as secure as government channels typically used for discussing highly sensitive war planning and combat operations. The Signal chat until recently included about a dozen of Hegseth's top aides, including Joe Kasper, Hegseth's chief of staff, and Sean Parnell, the Pentagon's chief spokesman. The chat also included two senior advisers to Hegseth-Dan Caldwell and Darin Selnick. Both were accused of leaking unauthorized information last week and were fired. Reuters reported on April 15 that Caldwell was escorted out of the Pentagon and placed under administrative leave due to "an unauthorized disclosure." An official from the Pentagon later confirmed to Newsweek via email that Selnick "has also been placed on administrative leave pending investigation." Caldwell and Selnick, along with another former top Pentagon official, proclaimed their innocence in a Saturday statement on X, formerly Twitter, responding to the leak inquiry that led to their dismissals. According to Politico, citing a defense official, the investigation is focused on leaks pertaining to military plans for a second aircraft carrier headed to the Red Sea, the Panama Canal, pausing intelligence collection to Ukraine amid its ongoing war with Russia and a visit to the Pentagon from billionaire Elon Musk who leads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). In a March memo, Joe Kasper, Hegseth's chief of staff, mentioned the investigation into the leaks: "Recent unauthorized disclosures of national security information involving sensitive communications with principals within the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) demand immediate and thorough investigation." Sean Parnell, chief Pentagon spokesperson, on X last month: "For too long, instances of unauthorized disclosures of national security information have gone uninvestigated at the DoD. @SecDef is committed to aggressively pursuing parties responsible for any leaks and will refer them to law enforcement for criminal prosecution. Efforts to subvert @POTUS command of our Armed Forces, to endanger the lives of our warfighters, or to harm our national security will not be tolerated. ACCOUNTABILITY IS BACK." Former chief Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot wrote an opinion article for Politico following the second report: "It's been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon. From leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings, the dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president - who deserves better from his senior leadership." The Pentagon's acting inspector general Steven Stebbins announced earlier this month that he would review Hegseth's Yemen strike disclosures on the Signal chat: "The objective of this evaluation is to determine the extent to which the secretary of defense and other DoD personnel complied with DoD policies and procedures for the use of a commercial messaging application for official business." Fred Wellman, U.S. Army combat veteran and host of On Democracy with FPWellman podcast on MeidasTouch, wrote on X on Sunday: "This is even worse than the last one. Hegseth created a Signal group with friends and family and shared highly classified strike plans on his PERSONAL phone. @SecDef must resign! Take your propagandist buddies with you!" Mike Nellis, former senior adviser to former Vice President Kamala Harris, wrote on X: "Trump needs to fire Pete Hegseth. He's a complete trainwreck. His office is a damn mess, and he can't stop leaking national security secrets. What the hell are you thinking, putting your wife and brother on a text chain with war plans?" Representative Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat, wrote on X: "Hegseth should just tell us how many chat rooms he was leaking confidential information to. Let's just get to the bottom of this now instead of it leaking out over the next few months." Retired U.S. Army General Barry R. McCaffrey wrote on X: "A stunning security failure by Sec Def. His personal phone assuredly targeted by foreign adversaries. His wife not cleared for classified info." American sports and political commentator Keith Olbermann wrote on X: "BREAKING: The Secretary of Vodka shared actual battle plans on Signal with the Missus." Founder of the left-leaning think tank People's Policy Project Matt Bruenig on X: "Hegseth wife probably just texted back 'that's so cool, glad you are having fun'" Wajahat Ali,columnist and co-host of Democracy-ish podcast, wrote on X: "Good lord. Bring Back DEI. Hire competent people. This isn't a game, MAGA." The Pentagon's acting inspector general is reviewing Hegseth's Yemen initial strike disclosures on the Signal chat that included top Trump aides, however it's unclear whether this review has uncovered the second Signal chat. This review was initiated in response to a joint bipartisan request from the Senate Armed Services Committee leadership. Related Articles What is the Insurrection Act? What To Know as Donald Trump Deadline HitsTop DOD Officials Under Hegseth Fired Amid Leak Probe: ReportsHegseth and Noem Decide on Insurrection Act Guidance for Trump: ReportWho is John Ullyot? Former Pentagon Spokesman Asked to Resign-Report 2025 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.
New York Times
15-04-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
C.I.A. Director's Messages in Leaked Chat Were Deleted, Agency Says
All of the messages from a leaked group chat have been deleted from the phone of John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, the agency said in a court filing. Michael Waltz, the national security adviser, created a chat group and invited cabinet members and their aides to discuss the administration's plans to strike Houthi militia targets in Yemen last month. But Mr. Waltz inadvertently added Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, who eventually published the texts. Democrats and other critics have said that the officials in the chat on the commercial app Signal revealed classified and sensitive information, including the times U.S. airstrikes were being launched from ships. Testifying before Congress last month, Mr. Ratcliffe and Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, said that the information was not classified. The watchdog group American Oversight said the messages were federal records and sued in an effort to preserve the chats. In court papers filed on Monday, Hurley V. Blankenship, the C.I.A.'s chief data officer, declared that he had reviewed screenshots from Mr. Ratcliffe's account. But he said only 'residual administrative content' remained, including the name of the chat, the 'Houthi PC small group.' 'The screenshot,' Mr. Blankenship said, 'does not include substantive messages from the Signal chat.' Many Signal users activate a setting that automatically deletes messages, a feature that increases the security of the encrypted chats. The Atlantic reported that some of the messages that were shared with Mr. Goldberg were set to delete a week later. Others were set to delete in four weeks. The court papers filed by the C.I.A. suggested that those settings may have been changed just before or after a judge issued an order to preserve the records. Simply changing the deletion timer would not have automatically deleted texts that had been sent. Chioma Chukwu, the interim executive director of American Oversight, said on Tuesday that the Trump administration had an obligation to preserve communications among top officials, and that the deletion of the Signal messages appeared to be illegal destruction of federal records. 'Using encrypted, disappearing messages on Signal for official government business violates the Federal Records Act and represents a calculated strategy to undermine transparency and accountability despite the grave risk it poses to our national security and the safety of our men and women in uniform,' Ms. Chukwu said. On March 27, Judge James E. Boasberg of the Federal District Court in Washington ordered several Trump administration officials who participated in the chat to preserve records of the communications. The judge then ordered the government to provide declarations about their efforts to preserve federal records. American Oversight said Mr. Blankenship's declaration indicated that message settings were changed on March 26 and March 28, the days before and after the judge's order. The C.I.A. reviewed screenshots of Mr. Ratcliffe's phone on March 31, after the message settings appear to have been changed. American Oversight has said it plans to file an amended complaint in court to try to learn details of other Signal groups started by government officials.
WIRED
15-04-2025
- Politics
- WIRED
Here's What Happened to Those SignalGate Messages
Apr 15, 2025 5:27 PM A lawsuit over the Trump administration's infamous Houthi Signal group chat has revealed what steps departments took to preserve the messages—and how little they actually saved. Photograph:Attorneys suing the United States government over its use of vanishing Signal messages to coordinate military strikes last month in Yemen allege new court filings by the government reveal a 'calculated strategy' by Trump administration officials to evade transparency laws through the illegal destruction of government records. US defense and intelligence agencies on Monday submitted supplemental declarations in court outlining their individual efforts to preserve the messages at the center of the 'SignalGate' scandal. American Oversight, a watchdog organization whose attorneys are suing the government, claim the declarations reveal 'troubling inconsistencies' in efforts by US officials to archive the material, with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in particular alleging that it had archived no messages of any substance. 'Using encrypted, disappearing messages on Signal for official government business violates the Federal Records Act and represents a calculated strategy to undermine transparency and accountability,' claims the group's interim executive director, Chioma Chukwu. The use of the private group chat—in which some messages were configured to automatically delete before they could be archived—was first revealed by Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg on March 24, after he was inadvertently added to the group by Trump's national security advisor, Michael Waltz. American Oversight subsequently filed Freedom of Information Act requests over the chats and then sought a temporary restraining order in a Washington, DC federal court in an effort to compel the government to salvage any messages yet to be deleted. In addition to Waltz, known participants in the chat group include, among others, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice President J.D. Vance, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe. WIRED has requested comment from the Justice Department, the Office of the National Intelligence Director, and the White House. The departments of Defense and State declined to comment. The CIA could not be immediately reached for comment. The declarations filed by the government late Monday show a scattershot attempt by multiple agencies to comply with the court's demands, with several days elapsing during their various individual efforts to obtain and preserve the messages. Judge James Boasberg, the chief judge of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, issued his initial order to preserve the communications on March 27, while giving each agency four days to describe what actions were being taken to obey. 'We were really trying to seek preservation of Signal chats more broadly,' American Oversight's deputy chief counsel, Katie Anthony, tells WIRED. 'But the court was not willing to step outside the one specific chat we all knew about for certain." The declarations ultimately offered scant information about the methods that were employed to preserve the messages, or the degrees to which those methods are forensically sound. And it is unclear from the disclosures what portion of the chat—alleged to cover five days in early March—might have been irretrievable by that time. According to reporting by The Atlantic, some of the messages concerning the military strikes, which targeted Houthi fighters in Yemen, were set to delete automatically after four weeks. Others were reportedly set to disappear after only one. The US Treasury Department was initially alone in providing the court a timeline of the messages that it was able to retrieve. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had received a preservation memo on March 26, his acting general counsel said, as well as advice regarding his fundamental duty to preserve records. Resultingly, "images were taken from the phones of Secretary Bessent and Mr. [Daniel] Katz," Bessent's chief of staff. The messages begin at 1:48 pm EST on March 15, 2025. "The Atlantic article was about a chat that took place the 11th through the 15th,' Anthony says, 'so pretty much everything was gone—from the only defendant who gave us clear and specific information about what they were able to save.' The Department of Defense told the court last month that its attorneys were "in the process" of complying with the agency's preservation rules, and that Secretary Hegseth's communications team had been asked to forward the Signal messages to an official DoD account. Pressed by the court for further details last week, DoD said Monday that a search of Hegseth's device had been conducted "on or about March 27," adding that screenshots of the "existing Signal application messages" had been preserved. American Oversight's lawyers had urged the court to seek greater specificity, arguing on April 4 that "vague, incomplete assertions" in the government's original declarations had only cast fresh doubts on its "purported efforts" to preserve the chats. In light of new reporting, the group argued, the government's response seemed otherwise "grossly inadequate." Politico had reported two days prior that as many as 20 private Signal chat groups had been started by Waltz's team with a slew of cabinet officials. 'It seems very likely that the individuals who are defendants in our lawsuit are probably involved in some of those other chats, and we have this problem on a much wider basis,' Anthony says. The Department of Justice, meanwhile, opposed the court's involvement, arguing that its efforts on behalf of a watchdog group were legally confused and that the question of whether any laws were broken is in any case moot. Members of the public, it argued, have no "enforceable rights' when it comes to challenging the destruction of specific government records. A court order was unnecessary, the department said, because the government was already taking steps to do what is required. A 'partial version of the chat' had already been committed to a federal record keeping system, it said, by 'at least one agency.' Among other new details, Monday's disclosures provided a range of dates for the preservation efforts at multiple agencies, including the date that Hegseth's phone was finally 'searched.' Screenshots of chats on Marco Rubio's phone were likewise captured on March 27, the State Department said. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said its screenshots were taken the following day, on March 28. The CIA said it took a screenshot of the chat on March 31; however, it also clarified one of its previous declarations to the court, revealing the image shows mainly the name of the chat group, some of its members and settings, but not any of its 'substantive messages.' American Oversight previewed a case to amend its initial complaint during a hearing last week, with plans to encourage the court to expand the scope of its review to include the now-reported widespread use of Signal by top officials across the national security state. 'This attack on government transparency threatens the very foundation of our democracy,' Chukwu says. 'And we are committed to using every legal tool available to expose the truth and hold those responsible accountable.'
