Part II - When Signal Met the House
Five days into the crisis, the Trump administration is pressing hard to reach the final phase in what has become a recognizable playbook.
By Brian O’Neill
We are watching a familiar pattern unfold—one that surfaces whenever a presidential administration is caught off guard by a scandal it helped create. Now, five days into the Signal crisis, the Trump administration is pressing hard to reach the final phase in what has become a recognizable playbook: the Five Stages of Official Evasion. But, so far, its attempts to sprint through the earlier stages haven’t stuck.
On Wednesday morning, as the House Intelligence Committee convened its annual threat hearing, we watched as Stage 2 of evasion unfolded. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and others appeared under oath—again. But the tone hadn’t shifted. Gabbard described the chat as sensitive but said it was not classified. She said the inclusion of a journalist was a mistake but maintained that no sources or war plans were shared.
This attempt to deflect was stopped in its tracks with the publication by The Atlantic that morning of more chat messages that showed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had provided highly classified, minute-by-minute strike updates in real-time. These were not hypotheticals or policy deliberations. They were operational details: launch times, target confirmation, weapons platforms.
Former CIA colleagues and I, along with senior Pentagon officials, have since weighed in to confirm the breach was not just serious—it was unequivocal. “It was 100 percent classified,” said one three-decade CIA veteran. Another underscored that the enemy doesn’t need precise locations to respond—just timing and platform data. And, as I noted in the same report, neither the classification rules nor common sense permit describing the strike sequence—“this is when the first bombs will definitely drop”—in an unsecured chat.
Fighter pilots and commanders have since spoken out, noting that even within secure briefings, such details are tightly controlled to protect personnel in real time. Typing them into a group chat—regardless of classification markings—violates every principle of operational discipline. According to CNN, one senior defense official said, “Anybody in uniform would be court-martialed for this.”
This alone has drawn proper outrage, but one data point is worth noting. At Tuesday’s hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee, before these new operational details in the chat were published, Gabbard testified that she couldn’t recall whether the chat included such specifics. That raises the uncomfortable possibility that the director of national intelligence—who is also a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves—either didn’t understand what she was hearing or reading, wasn’t paying attention, or deliberately misled Congress during her testimony this week. Given her role and background, the idea that she wouldn’t recognize operationally sensitive content—precise launch windows, platform sequencing, and positive target ID—defies belief.
At Wednesday’s testimony, Gabbard tried to get the administration to a hybrid of Stages 3 and 4, claiming that Signal comes pre-installed on government devices and that Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency guidance supports its use. But this is misleading. The guidance she cited is a “best practices” reminder about encryption and phishing risks, which employees receive regularly to ensure they use safe practices at work and at home. This advisory was not a green light to use Signal for real-time war planning. It never mentioned classified systems.
And it’s not as if they lacked options. Every official involved had access to secure government communications—encrypted phones, classified video links, and controlled networks designed specifically for moments like this. These tools aren’t just protected; they’re monitored, auditable, and governed by clear protocol. Choosing Signal wasn’t a matter of necessity. It was a matter of indifference—to the protocols that safeguard secure information and to the legal responsibilities that come with preserving official records.
Later Wednesday, the administration started using an old standby: blame the staff. The president called it a mix-up, floated the idea of an “innocent staffer,” and even blamed “bad Signal.” But no staffer directed the Secretary of Defense to type out strike sequences in a chat. No junior aide added a reporter to a national security thread. And no intern decided that the use of an app was acceptable for war planning.
By Wednesday evening, even the national security principals were slowly acknowledging reality. The White House now says the journalist’s inclusion was an error. President Donald Trump and some on the chat say National Security Adviser Mike Waltz has taken responsibility. But the sole error being conceded is the inadvertent inclusion of The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief on the chat—not the actions taken on the platform.
On Thursday, the administration began seeking out Stage 5: “Nothing to See Here.” Attorney General Pam Bondi implied that there would likely be no criminal investigation into the Signal chat, asserting at a press conference that the information Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared was “sensitive,” not classified. She praised the mission’s success and quickly pivoted to talking points about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails and former President Joe Biden’s garage.
But nowhere have we heard an answer to what the American people keep asking: Why don’t you just admit you screwed up, not only with having the reporter on the chat but also, and more important, in using the chat to discuss a military operation?
By Thursday afternoon, no other comments came from the White House, suggesting that the administration is going to act like everyone has moved on.
We shall see.
One last thought to ponder. Think back to the 2011 Situation Room photo during the Osama bin Laden raid: the president, vice president, secretary of state, the DNI, the CIA director, and senior military officials—all gathered in one place, watching a live feed, receiving minute-by-minute updates via secure, classified channels. It was an image that conveyed unity, seriousness, and accountability.
Now imagine an image for the Yemen operation: everyone on the Signal app. JD Vance at a political event, the intelligence team in their offices, and the Secretary of Defense who knows where texting strike sequences and emojis of muscular arms—and the president’s Middle East envoy reading along while meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
No Situation Room. No unified command. Just a scattered chain of top officials using a messaging app Russia has repeatedly tried to compromise.
The 2011 photo fills us with pride. This imagined image? Not even close.
Brian O’Neill, a retired senior executive from the CIA and National Counterterrorism Center, is an instructor on strategic intelligence at Georgia Tech.
No one can really be surprised. A Felon as president who already was found to have provided Russians with classified information and stood with Putin in Helsinki, a Russian asset as DNI who knowingly spouted Russian talking points in the past, a White Christian Nationalist as Sec Def who talked the Felon into pardoning war criminals, and a GOP Senate voting to confirm all of them.
When do the heads start rolling? She asked hopefully, knowing the traitors would walk.