Trump national security team used Gmail for government matters – WaPo

Members of the US National Security Council (NSC), including national security adviser Mike Waltz, have used personal Gmail accounts to discuss sensitive government information, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday, citing obtained emails and three people familiar with the matter.

The report comes after Waltz accidentally added a journalist to a Signal chat group where Defense Minister Pete Hegseth, Vice President J.D. Vance and other senior officials discussed the upcoming US strikes in Yemen. 

According to the Post, a senior Waltz aide used Gmail for “highly technical conversations” with colleagues, which included “sensitive military positions and powerful weapons systems relating to an ongoing conflict.” 

The Post cited officials as saying that Waltz had “potentially exploitable information” sent to his Gmail account and posted parts of his schedule into Signal to coordinate meetings and discussions.

Officials are normally required to use secure government-issued means of communication.

NSC spokesman Brian Hughes told the Post that Waltz “didn’t and wouldn’t send classified information on an open account.” He added that when “legacy contacts” were emailing Waltz, he always copied the messages to his government email “to ensure compliance with records retention.” Hughes said that NSC staff are instructed to use “only secure platforms for classified information.”

In a statement to Fox News, Hughes said that he could not verify the Post’s claims because the journalist “refused to share any part of the document reported.”

The Democrats have criticized the Trump administration for using the Signal chat app when discussing the bombing of Houthi positions in Yemen last month. According to Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, he was added to a group where Hegseth shared the timeline of the March 15 strikes, as well as the weapons systems used in the operation.

Hegseth and other White House officials have denied that any classified information was shared in the chat with Goldberg. President Donald Trump has rejected the calls to dismiss Waltz. “I don’t fire people because of fake news and because of witch hunts,” he told NBC News on Saturday.