It seemed odd to me from the beginning.
Why would one of President Donald Trump’s favorite aides invite one of his sworn enemies into a sensitive, at the very least, if not classified, discussion about a dangerous military operation?
A Signal messenger account under the name of National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, according to Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, extended an offer to him to “talk.”
“I said yes. And the next thing I know, I’m in this very strange chat group with the national security leadership of the United States,” Goldberg told BBC.
Goldberg said he originally thought it was a hoax, but eventually realized it was real and ultimately left the group chat.
Did Waltz make a mistake?
Under withering criticism and scrutiny, Waltz took the blame. He told Fox News, “I take full responsibility. I built the group.”
But, he also said, “(Goldberg) wasn’t on my phone. And we’re going to figure out how this happened.”
He confessed on Tuesday that he didn’t know how it happened.
Did a hostile foreign or domestic enemy hack his phone?
In February, the National Security Agency issued a special bulletin that read in part, “Russian professional hacking groups are employing the ‘linked devices’ feature to spy on encrypted conversations.”
“The hacking groups,” the warning read, “embed malicious QR codes in phishing pages or conceal them in group invite links. After gaining access via the malicious code, the groups add their own devices as a linked device. This allows the group to view every message sent by the unwitting user in real time, bypassing the end-to-end encryption.”
That took on significant importance Thursday when German publication Der Spiegel reported that a team of its reporters found “the contact data of some of those officials (who were on the group chat), including mobile phone numbers, is freely accessible on the internet.”
The publication said the reporters used publicly available “people search engines” to find contact information for Waltz, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
Considering the NSA’s warning, the information Der Spiegel is reporting, and Waltz’s inability to explain how Goldberg got into his phone contacts, nefarious activity is looking like a very strong possibility.
Did someone Waltz knows try to embarrass him?
That is a very active theory among Washington security insiders. President Trump initially blamed a “staffer” for the breach. Even though Waltz indicated that wasn’t the case — was that actually what happened?
Several security sources I’ve spoken to say it could very well have been either accidentally or deliberately done — landing Waltz and the entire group in very hot water.
The National Security Council’s investigation is ongoing, but I suspect there will be many others to come, as well.
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