The Trump administration's signal group chat leak was the “sloppy” move to attack Democrats for the first time since President Donald Trump's inauguration, D-VA Sen. Mark Warner said on Sunday.
Warner made a statement appearing on Fox News Sunday, telling host Shannon Breem that it was a shame for Americans to assert that Trump officials did not classify information discussed in group chats.
“This was very inappropriate. This was very sloppy. You know, the signal [is] It's fine, but please do not include the classified information. This is a military officer or intelligence agent and if they did that, they would be fired,” Warner said.
Warner failed to say that the group chat information became “crime,” as his fellow Senator Richard Blumental argued.
Elon Musk tapped to guide an investigation into signal chat leaks: White House
D-Va. Sen. Mark Warner of the group says Democrats are under attack after a Trump administration signal chat leaked. (AP Photo/Amanda Andrade Laud)
The encrypted messaging app signal is in the spotlight after it was revealed that top national security leaders were taking part in a group chat debating plans to attack Yemeni terrorists. The chat also mistakenly included Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg. The chat was published in-person accounts of a group chat published by Goldberg in last week's article.
Trump administration The chat claims that the classified information is not shared, and after Goldberg published certain texts from the chat on Wednesday, the Atlantic story doubled as “a hoax.”
Judge fighting Trump over El Salvador's deportation assigned to lawsuit via signal chat leak
The message included the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegses The outline of the fighter plane being set to take off and attack the drone was ready for operations that had a time stamp.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegses said he did not share a confidential plan to attack Houthi's targets in a signal group chat on March 26, 2025.
The use of signals is not in the context of war or military operations, but has become more and more common within the DC Beltway in recent months.
The app grew in popularity after it was discovered in October 2024 that China-linked hackers were targeting US mobile phone data. With Trump Politico, Vice President JD Vance, who is currently in the campaign, reported last week.
Several years before the signal leak, which included rage from the Trump administration and subsequent Democrats and other critics, Democrats repeatedly touted the signal as an additional precaution against the potential hack.
Image of a woman holding a mobile phone in front of a signal logo displayed on a computer screen. (Getty Images)
Click here to get the Fox News app
Democrats stressed that they were not opposed to the Trump administration's use of signals in fallout from last week's leak. This is only sharing classification information through the app.
Emma Colton from Fox News contributed to this report
