SignalGate Becomes WaltzGate (with a side of Loomer)

If you reckoned that Trump 2.0’s first national security scandal couldn’t get weirder, you bet wrong

Who really is Mike Waltz?

Since he’s the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, holding one of the most powerful jobs in Washington, DC, with global impact, that’s an important question. Do we know the answer?

This matters considerably these days since Waltz, the National Security Council boss, finds himself at the center of SignalGate, the second Trump administration’s first significant scandal. As this newsletter has explained in detail, Waltz’s creation of a chat group on Signal, the encrypted messaging app, for top Trump national security officials to discuss Houthi rebels in Yemen, was unwise. Not to mention a serious counterintelligence risk, given how closely foreign intelligence services monitor the White House. That the group shared almost certainly classified information in that “Houthi PC small group” chat on Signal, detailing on-going U.S. military operations, in violation of federal laws governing the handling of national defense information, raises troubling questions about Waltz’s judgement.

The White House professes that the scandal is over. However, the Pentagon’s announcement that its Inspector General is investigating the involvement of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in that Signal group chat indicates that the door can’t be fully shut just yet. Hegseth deserves a disproportionate share of the blame in this affair, since he posted information, probably classified TOPSECRET, taken from a DoD Air Tasking Order outlining imminent Central Command strikes on Houthi bases in Yemen in the group chat, in flagrant violation of federal regulations. Moreover, Hegseth was combative when the press asked questions about SignalGate, as well as dishonest. However, Hegseth’s pugnaciousness is precisely why President Trump put that tattooed Fox News talker in charge of the Pentagon, plus the White House expended serious political capital getting Hegseth through a challenging Senate confirmation fight, so he’s safe.