After a signal breakdown: Lawsuit against US Defense Minister Hegseth

Confidential attack plans in the group chat

After a signal breakdown: Lawsuit against US Defense Minister

A signal chat group with US government members ensures vertebrae: secret plans have been shared-now there are first legal consequences.

After the serious security breakdown around a chat group of high-ranking US government members, the Watchdog organization American Oversight has now filed a lawsuit. This is reported by the US magazine “Huffington Post”.

The organization therefore calls for a federal judge to state that US Defense Minister Pete Hegseth and other participants have violated the Federal Archives Act. You should not have fulfilled your obligation to secure official communication.

In a chat on the Messengerapp Signal, Hegseth, Foreign Minister Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance are said to have exchanged attack plans for the Huthi-Miliz in Yemen. The national security advisor Mike Waltz accidentally invited the prominent “The Atlantic” journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to the group, who later made the incident public. The case caused outrage in Washington. The white house wants to check the incident. Here you can read more about the backgrounds.

Hegseth denied the allegations and any misconduct in front of the press – although he himself is said to have shared detailed and classified war plans on the app. Mike Waltz, on the other hand, took responsibility. “I take full responsibility,” he said on Tuesday in Fox News. “I founded this group.” Waltz admitted that the number of journalist Jeffrey Goldberg was in his phone book. He confused him with someone else. Personally, he does not know the “Atlantic” editor-in-chief.

President Donald Trump defended his team in an interview with NBC on Tuesday. The journalist was not added by Waltz himself, but by an employee. Trump spoke of a “slip” who was “not serious”.

In principle, government employees can use messenger apps such as Signal-but not for confidential content. According to the application, the head of the authorities are obliged to create and keep records of official communication. This applies regardless of the degree of confidentiality. The data must therefore be archived for up to two years.

However, according to “Huffington Post”, Waltz is said to have activated a function, and after a week – in individual cases after four weeks – the news automatically deletes. As the lawsuit continues, Foreign Minister Rubio is also informed about such alleged violations as the acting archivist of the United States. He is responsible for initiating an investigation through the Attorney General.

“What the Trump government did was simply dangerous, ruthless and irresponsible and, frankly, a direct threat to our national security,” said American Oversight lawyer. “Because as has been reported, Hackers, who are increasingly supported by the state, are increasingly trying to penetrate in signal chats.” The app therefore does not offer a reliable level of protection.

The Pentagon had pronounced a warning just last week: a “security gap” was discovered in Signal.