CNN airs brutal montage of Trump officials who were in Signal chat
condemning Hillary Clinton’s email server
Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, John Ratcliffe and Mike Waltz all publicly criticized
Clinton for failing to use proper government channels to share classified
information
James Liddell
Tuesday 25 March 2025
CNN shows montage of Trump officials in Signal chat condemning Hillary
Clinton's email server
White House National Security adviser Mike Waltz appeared to have mistakenly
invited The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeff Goldberg to an encrypted chat called
the “Houthi PC small group” that included top officials and cabinet officials to
discuss highly classified information about an impending U.S. strike in Yemen.
Just hours after the news broke on Monday, CNN’s The Source shared a
montage of current Trump administration officials who had repeatedly railed
against Clinton for not using proper government channels to send details on
classified material between 2009 and 2013.
“If it was anyone other than Hillary Clinton, they’d be in jail right now,” Defense
Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a resurfaced Fox News clip from 2016.
“Nobody is above the law,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio also said on Fox
News in 2016. “Not even Hillary Clinton, even though she thinks she is.”
“Mishandling classified information is still a violation of the Espionage Act,” CIA
Director John Ratcliffe told Fox News in 2019.
“When you have the [Hillary] Clinton emails... On top of the fact that the sitting
president of the United States (Donald Trump) admitted he had documents in
his garage... They didn't prosecute they didn’t go after these folks,” Waltz, who
added Golberg to the Signal chat, told CNN in 2023.
Just hours after reports surfaced, Clinton took to X to issue a seven-word
response.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Clinton tweeted, along with a screenshot of
The Atlantic’s report.
In 2016, then-FBI director James Comey found evidence that Clinton was
“extremely careless” in using a private server to send hundreds of classified
emails – but that her actions were not deemed severe enough to warrant an
indictment. The revelations derailed her 2016 presidential campaign as the
Democratic Party’s nominee, leading to President Donald Trump’s repeated
promises to “lock her up.”
Mike Waltz, who invited Jeff Goldberg to the Signal chat, spoke out against
Hillary Clinton on CNN in June 2023
Mike Waltz, who invited Jeff Goldberg to the Signal chat, spoke out against
Hillary Clinton on CNN in June 2023 (CNN/Acyn/X)
Vice President JD Vance, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, Treasury
Secretary Scott Bessent, Trump’s Middle East and Ukraine negotiator, Steve
Witkoff, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and Deputy Chief of Staff for
Policy Stephen Miller, were among others who appeared to be included in the
Signal channel.
Waltz, a former Green Beret and Florida representative, used the common
encrypted messaging app to form the group chat with colleagues on the
National Security Council’s “Principals Committee.” Signal is not an official
communications channel available to top government officials.
In an explosive report, Goldberg revealed how he unwittingly was able to get
front-row seats as Trump’s team began outlining their plans to bomb the
Houthis in Yemen earlier this month. No one managed to spot the interloper in
the group, even when Goldberg left the chat – which would have notified
members.
In 2019, CIA Director John Ratcliffe noted that the mishandling of classified
information is a ‘violation of the Espionage Act’
open image in gallery
In 2019, CIA Director John Ratcliffe noted that the mishandling of classified
information is a ‘violation of the Espionage Act’ (CNN/Acyn/X)
In the chat, Vance appeared to disagree with Trump's wisdom on the strikes,
noting: “I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his
message on Europe right now.”
The vice president and defense secretary also shared their disdain for what
Hegseth called “European free-loading.”
When probed by a reporter in the Oval Office on Monday, Trump said he didn’t
know “anything about” the story.
“You are telling me about it for the first time,” he added.
Hegseth told reporters later on Monday that “nobody was texting war plans,
and that’s all I have to say about that.”
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