Trump advisor used Gmail to discuss military matters – WP
Kyiv • UNN
Members of Trump's National Security Council, including Mike Waltz, conducted government business through personal Gmail accounts. Waltz discussed sensitive topics with officials from other agencies who used government accounts.
Members of US President Donald Trump's National Security Council, including White House National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, conducted government business through personal Gmail accounts. This is stated in a material by The Washington Post, UNN informs.
Details
According to documents reviewed by the publication, Waltz used the service to discuss sensitive topics, including US military positions and weapons systems, with officials from other agencies who used government accounts.
The use of Gmail, a much less secure method of communication than the encrypted messaging app Signal, is the latest example of questionable data protection practices by senior officials
The relevant information was also confirmed to the publication by unnamed officials from the Trump administration. According to them, Waltz received less confidential, but potentially useful information, such as his schedule and other work documents. At the same time, the White House National Security Advisor sometimes "copied and pasted from his schedule into Signal" to coordinate meetings and discussions.
Experts believe that using personal email, even for unclassified materials, is risky, given the high value that foreign intelligence services place on the communications and schedules of senior government officials, such as the National Security Advisor
Thus, according to Eva Galperin, director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, email is not encrypted with end-to-end encryption, and the content of a message can be intercepted and read at many points, including on Google's own servers.
Let us remind you
Recently, the editor of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, reported that he was accidentally added to a chat in Signal, where he witnessed a discussion of future attacks on Houthi targets in Yemen.
This caused a heated discussion in the White House: an investigation has been launched, and there is even talk that National Security Advisor Mike Waltz should be fired.
In turn, Donald Trump supported Mike Waltz after the incident with the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic getting into a closed chat where military plans were discussed. Trump said the situation did not affect the military operation.
Waltz himself took "full responsibility" for creating a chat in the Signal group to discuss US military strikes in Yemen, which was accidentally attended by The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg.
