Trump's Signal man Not just Signal: Michael Waltz reportedly used Gmail for government messages More damaging reports for Trump official who invited journalist to Signal chat. Jon Brodkin Apr 2, 2025 1:46 pm | 50 US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz at the US military's Pituffik Space Base in Greenland on March 28, 2025. Credit: Getty Images | Jim Watson/AFP US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz at the US military's Pituffik Space Base in Greenland on March 28, 2025. Credit: Getty Images | Jim Watson/AFP Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreNational Security Advisor Michael Waltz and a senior aide used personal Gmail accounts for government communications, according to a Washington Post report published yesterday.Waltz has been at the center of controversy for weeks because he inadvertently invited The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg to a Signal chat in which top Trump administration officials discussed a plan for bombing Houthi targets in Yemen. Yesterday's report of Gmail use and another recent report on additional Signal chats raise more questions about the security of sensitive government communications in the Trump administration.A senior Waltz aide used Gmail "for highly technical conversations with colleagues at other government agencies involving sensitive military positions and powerful weapons systems relating to an ongoing conflict," The Washington Post wrote.The Post said it reviewed the emails. "While the NSC official used his Gmail account, his interagency colleagues used government-issued accounts, headers from the email correspondence show," the report said.Waltz himself "had less sensitive, but potentially exploitable information sent to his Gmail, such as his schedule and other work documents, said officials, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe what they viewed as problematic handling of information," the report said. "The officials said Waltz would sometimes copy and paste from his schedule into Signal to coordinate meetings and discussions."Separately, The Wall Street Journal described additional Signal chats in a report on Sunday about Waltz losing support inside the White House. "Two US officials also said that Waltz has created and hosted multiple other sensitive national-security conversations on Signal with cabinet members, including separate threads on how to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine as well as military operations. They declined to address if any classified information was posted in those chats," the WSJ wrote.We contacted the White House about the reported use of Gmail and Signal today and will update this article if we get a response.Waltzs denials increasingly hard to believeAccording to The Washington Post, National Security Council "spokesman Brian Hughes said he has seen no evidence of Waltz using his personal email as described and said on occasions when 'legacy contacts' have emailed him work-related materials, he makes sure to 'cc' his government email to ensure compliance with federal records laws that require officials to archive official correspondence.""Waltz didn't and wouldn't send classified information on an open account," Hughes was quoted as saying. Hughes also said that Signal is approved for government use but "acknowledged that it is not supposed to be used for classified material and insisted Waltz never used it as such."Trump administration officials previously claimed that no classified information about war plans was shared in the Signal chat that included Goldberg. The Atlantic subsequently published texts showing that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth shared planned strike times and information about targets and weapons before the attacks in Yemen.The Post wrote that "US officials say Trump is much more upset about the inclusion of a liberal journalist on a confidential group chat than he is about exposing secrets to foreign adversaries. But White House officials have found Waltz's denials increasingly hard to believe."Waltz denied even knowing Goldberg despite a 2021 picture of the two men standing next to each other at an event. Explaining how Goldberg might have been added to the Signal group, Waltz told Fox News, "I'm sure everybody out there has had a contact where it said one person and then a different phone number... if you have somebody else's contact, and then somehow it gets sucked in, it gets sucked in."In response, Goldberg told NBC News, "Well, this isn't The Matrix. Phone numbers don't just get sucked into other phones. I don't know what he's talking about there... He's telling everyone that he's never met me or spoken to me. That's simply not true. I understand why he's doing it but this has become a somewhat farcical situation. There's no subterfuge here. My number was in his phone, he mistakenly added me to the group chatthere we go."Jon BrodkinSenior IT ReporterJon BrodkinSenior IT Reporter Jon is a Senior IT Reporter for Ars Technica. He covers the telecom industry, Federal Communications Commission rulemakings, broadband consumer affairs, court cases, and government regulation of the tech industry. 50 Comments