The problem with the now infamous Signal chat read around the world is not just that sensitive military-operations details were broadcast, but that this reveals a pattern of what appears to be institutional dishonesty inside the Trump administration and the legal ramifications that presents.
The leak exposes a system of broken accountability, where high-ranking officials can spill military secrets with apparent near-total immunity. Despite potential violations of classification protocols, federal record-keeping laws and promises of operational security, the leaders look to face no meaningful legal consequences.
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, and the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, have doubled down on the administration’s position that none of the messages in the Signal chat were classified, claiming they amounted to a “team update” that did not name intelligence-collection sources or methods.
But Brian Finucane, a former state department attorney with extensive experience in counter-terrorism and military operations, including deliberating and advising on past US military strikes against the Houthis in Yemen, said the specificity of the information about the aircraft types suggests it was classified.
“If I had seen that sort of information beforehand, that was shared with the special operation, in my experience, it would have been classified,” Finucane said. “I can’t guarantee what the state of the information was that Hegseth shared, but in my experience, this kind of pre-operational detail would have been classified.”
The US Department of Defense’s own classification guidelines suggest the kind of detailed military plans in the Signal chat would typically be classified at least at the “secret” level, while some of the real-time updates could have risen to a higher level of classification.
The information shared by Hegseth included a summary of operational details about the operation to strike Houthi rebel targets in Yemen, such as the launch times of F-18 fighter jets, the time that the first bombs were expected to drop, and the time that naval Tomahawk missiles would be launched. Hegseth’s update was sent before the operation had been carried out, and his reference to “clean on OPSEC” – operational security – indicated he recognized the sensitivity.
According to the classification guide, information about the “date and time mission/operation begins”, “time lines/schedules” and “concept of operations including order of battle, execution circumstances, operating locations, resources required, tactical maneuvers, deployments” would all usually be classified.
The chat also included a message from Mike Waltz, the national security adviser, who shared a real-time update (“first target – their top missile guy – we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed”), which had the potential to reveal the capabilities and assets the US had in the region.
Finucane explained that the primary areas of legal concern would be the Espionage Act, typically used to target whistleblowers; the Federal Records Act, for federal agencies to preserve documentation; and the Presidential Records Act, which requires the president to save all their records to be transferred to the National Archives post-term.
“The bigger-picture question is, who actually authorized what in respect to Yemen?” Finucane said. “It’s not clear what decision Trump actually made. We don’t know what Trump authorized.”
A former White House official said that while many in the government use Signal for convenience, this incident can only be summed up as “complete amateur hour”, and that Hegseth’s over-sharing would have resulted in immediate security-clearance revocation in previous administrations.
“I would have lost my clearance,” the official said. “I mean, these guys won’t lose their clearances, because no one fucking cares about anything anymore, but if I would have done this, I would have been investigated, and I would have lost my clearance.”
The web of potential misrepresentations extends beyond the White House’s official denial of the chat containing any classified information. Waltz, who according to the screenshots created and invited members into the group, attempted to distance himself from the incident, claiming he had “never met, don’t know, never communicated with” Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic editor in chief – a statement complicated by the Atlantic’s reporting suggesting prior communication between the two.
More than a dozen top-level Trump administration leaders use a Signal group chat, rather than secure government communication channels that they are all well aware of, which raises additional questions about information handling.
The officials face a potential Department of Defense inspector general investigation that could become embarrassing for the Trump administration, after the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate armed services committee asked for a review in a rare bipartisan letter on Wednesday.
But the officials appear to face no criminal exposure under the Espionage Act, which makes it a crime to improperly disclose “national defense information” regardless of its classification, in part because the Trump justice department is unlikely to prosecute its own cabinet officials.
Trump said at an event with his nominees for US ambassadorships at the White House on Tuesday that it was “not really” a matter for the FBI to investigate. Former FBI agents suggested that could be true since it did not involve an act of espionage for a foreign adversary.
The immediate legal consequence is likely to come in a lawsuit filed on Tuesday that accuses Hegseth; the CIA director, John Ratcliffe; the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and others of flouting federal records-retention laws.
In the 18-page suit, the watchdog group American Oversight asks a federal judge to compel the Trump administration to preserve the messages in the Signal chat, arguing that the use of a function that automatically deleted the messages after a certain time was unlawful.
The suit was assigned on Wednesday to James Boasberg, the chief US district judge in Washington DC, who is also presiding in the other major national security case involving the administration, over the deportations of Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act.
At issue for the administration in that case is that it flouted Boasberg’s verbal order to turn back flights that had already departed, and then stonewalled his inquiry into the possible violation of the order by invoking national security protections.
The aggressive approach that the administration took in the deportations case could become awkward in the new lawsuit over the Signal chat, with Boasberg likely to be skeptical from the outset of officials’ shifting interpretations of which materials are classified.
What that would mean in practical terms remains unclear. The Atlantic magazine releasing the full Signal text chain renders some of the suit redundant, since the messages are now in the public domain. But Boasberg could, for instance, order some fact-finding into the matter.
