The messaging app that Trump cabinet and administration officials used to deliberate airstrikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen was first approved under the Biden administration, a Republican senator claimed Tuesday.
“It is my understanding that the Biden administration authorized Signal as a means of communication that was consistent with presidential recordkeeping requirements for its administration, and that continued into the Trump administration,” Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said during an appearance Tuesday morning on “Fox & Friends.”
Signal, the chat messaging app with privacy features including the ability to erase messages after a certain length of time, became the subject of national media attention on Monday after the Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg published a first-hand account of how he was added to the Trump officials' group text.
Included in the Signal chat, according to Goldberg, were Vice President J.D. Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, whom Goldberg claimed added him to the group text.
Signal is “simply another messaging app like the iMessage app on your iPhone or email servers that every administration had set up in which senior administration officials can communicate with each other,” Cotton said.
But his claims about the Biden administration authorizing the app’s use among staffers is misleading.
While Biden did approve Signal, the app was not authorized for sensitive information, like the Yemen war plans Goldberg said was discussed in the group chat.
John B. Sherman, the chief information officer for the Defense Department in the Biden administration, issued a memo in October 2023 on the “use of classified mobile applications in the Department of Defense” that specifically placed restrictions on Signal.
“Unmanaged ‘messaging apps,’ including any app with a chat feature, regardless of the primary function, are NOT authorized to access, transmit, process non-public DoD information. This includes but is not limited to messaging, gaming, and social media apps. (i.e., iMessage, WhatsApps, Signal,)” the memo stated.
“Non-public DoD information” was defined in the memo as “Department of Defense information that has not been approved for public release.”
Goldberg claimed the information in the Signal chat he was privy to included “imminent war plans.”
A National Security Council spokesman confirmed to Goldberg that the chat “appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.”
The White House denied Goldberg’s claims of classified and sensitive information being disseminated in the group chat.
“Jeffrey Goldberg is well-known for his sensationalist spin,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt tweeted Tuesday morning.
She added that “no war plans” were discussed in the Signal chat and that no classified material was sent in the group text.