Trump’s Attorney General Has Bonkers Excuse for Using Signal
Yet another one of Donald Trump’s officials has no clue about data privacy.

Add one more to the number of Trump officials who don’t understand how digital security works.
In an interview with Fox News Thursday evening, Attorney General Pam Bondi claimed that the encrypted retail messenger app Signal is a “very safe way to communicate.”
“I don’t think foreign adversaries are able to hack Signal, as far as I know,” Bondi said.
But that’s all wrong, as pointed out by Representative Jimmy Gomez, who took a moment to publicly school the Justice Department chief on the matter.
“Hackers don’t need to hack Signal, they can hack your phone. Then they can see your screen and even access your camera and microphone,” the California Democrat posted Thursday night. “So Pam, if you can read your messages on signal, then China and Russia can read your messages on signal.”
The Trump administration has come under intense scrutiny after The Atlantic reported that several of its key officials discussed imminent plans to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen over Signal. The conversation was witnessed by The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, who was seemingly accidentally invited to the group chat by national security adviser Mike Waltz.
Former intelligence officials have warned that America’s adversaries “undoubtedly” already have the chat records, largely thanks to the Trump administration’s special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff’s physical presence in Russia when he was added to the chat.
In an interview with MeidasTouch Tuesday, former national security adviser Susan Rice said that Witkoff’s use of Signal while in Russia basically hand-delivered news of the attack to the Kremlin hours before it took place.
“Russians have whatever Witkoff was doing or saying on his personal cell phone,” Rice told the podcast.
Bondi indicated Thursday that the Justice Department would not launch a criminal investigation into administration officials’ use of Signal to communicate the attack plans.
She also declared that the details shared in the chat—which included down-to-the-minute scheduling for the launch of U.S. F-18 attack planes toward Yemen, “trigger based” strikes, and the launch of sea-based subsonic cruise missiles—were “not classified.”
Meanwhile, Representative Chrissy Houlahan cornered National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard during a House Intelligence Committee hearing Wednesday, committing the intelligence chief to “follow the law” and investigate the leak as required by bipartisan legislation.
The vast majority of Americans believe that something should be done about the reckless intelligence breach. A YouGov survey published on Tuesday found that 53 percent of nearly 6,000 polled Americans felt that the Trump administration’s Signal leak was “very serious,” while another 21 percent described it as “somewhat serious.”