New: Ratcliffe Cuts Down Part of The Atlantic's 'Signal Story' As Their Own Words Come Back to Bite Them

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By Nick Arama

We've been covering the story from The Atlantic about the Signal text chain between the national intelligence officials regarding actions against the Houthis.

The Trump team claimed they didn't share any classified information in the text chain. 

Indeed, in the text chain itself, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz explained that there was other information in their "high side inboxes" — in other words, that's where you'll find the classified stuff that we can't talk about here. So, he was clearly making a distinction in the type of information.

Now, CIA Director John Ratcliffe has cut down another aspect of the story. Ratcliffe said he didn't share any classified information and that the CIA officer who was not named in the Atlantic story was not undercover as the story implied.

“The reporter indicated that I had released the name of an undercover CIA operative," he said. “In fact, I released the name of my chief of staff who is not operating undercover.” He called the reporter's claim "false and misleading."

Ratcliffe said they should be focusing on the success of the mission instead and the actual threats that they were supposed to be talking about in the hearing on international threats. 

The Atlantic story also raised questions about the use of Signal. Obviously, there are times when you might use it and other times you wouldn't, hence why some matters were being discussed on the "high side" via classified channels. 

But The Atlantic actually called Signal the "gold standard of encrypted messaging and calling" in an article back in 2017.

Confide isn’t the first secure-communications app to find popularity among politicians and their aides. Signal, the gold standard of encrypted messaging and calling, is used by staffers who work for President Trump, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. 

That's incredibly ironic now, as they are taking aim at its usage by Trump administration officials. 

As Ratcliffe noted during his testimony, Signal had already been loaded on the government equipment when they came in, and the Biden team had used it. 

Bottom line? You always want to be careful with sensitive information, and the Trump team has admitted the mistake of Jeffrey Goldberg being added to the chain. Democrats want to flip out about this now at the threat hearing because, frankly, they're such a mess that they think this is distracting from their approval being in the dumper. But again, it's the same old play. "Attack Trump" is still not a winning message. 

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