House Republican slams Trump admin for using instant messaging app to conduct top-level military and national security planning - BERITAJA

Outgoing Republican Rep. Don Bacon, a retired Air Force general, is criticizing elder officials successful President Donald Trump’s management for continuing to trust connected the encrypted messaging app Signal for delicate subject and nationalist information discussions, contempt fallout from the 2025 Signalgate scandal.

Signal group chats

New records uncover 13 antecedently unreported Signal group chats among apical management officials. By: Unsplash

The contention reignited aft The Atlantic reported connected recently released State Department records obtained done a Freedom of Information Act petition revenge by the watchdog group Democracy Forward. According to the report, 13 antecedently undisclosed Signal group chats involving high-ranking Trump management officials took spot during the first six months of 2025.

Those chats reportedly included apical nationalist information officials specified arsenic Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Reacting to the report, Bacon posted connected X, warning, “Signal is not unafraid and not bully for delicate communications. I was notified by rule enforcement and House cyber experts that Russia hacked my Signal months ago.”

The Signalgate controversy

Don Bacon warned, ‘Signal is not unafraid and not bully for delicate communications.’ By: MEGA

The renewed scrutiny stems from the Trump administration’s earlier Signalgate controversy, which erupted aft apical nationalist information officials accidentally included The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg successful a group chat discussing subject plans.

At the time, Trump publically acknowledged the issue, telling Goldberg, “I deliberation we learned: Maybe don’t usage Signal, okay? … I would frankly show these group not to usage Signal.”

Despite that warning, The Atlantic reported, “Trump’s apical advisers did not heed his advice.”

Pete Hegseth plays defense

Pete Hegseth insisted he could ‘safely declassify’ the accusation shared. By: MEGA

The Atlantic‘s study besides drew caller attraction to Hegseth, revealing that his apical aide, Ricky Buria, oversaw the creation of a strategy that allows the caput of defense to entree his individual cellphone wrong the Pentagon, bypassing information restrictions designed to forestall unauthorized access.

Hegseth later declined to beryllium interviewed by investigators, alternatively submitting a written defense stating he had authority arsenic defense caput to “safely declassify” accusation and describing the shared worldly arsenic “non-specific wide details” utilized to create an “unclassified summary” for participants. Critics, however, stay unconvinced, arsenic investigators recovered that the messages mostly repeated classified operational specifications about planned strikes, craft deployment and weapons systems.