{"id":2415055,"date":"2025-03-25T13:09:01","date_gmt":"2025-03-25T17:09:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/ratcliffe-use-of-signal-was-permissible-lawful-washington-examiner\/"},"modified":"2025-03-25T13:10:53","modified_gmt":"2025-03-25T17:10:53","slug":"ratcliffe-use-of-signal-was-permissible-lawful-washington-examiner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/ratcliffe-use-of-signal-was-permissible-lawful-washington-examiner\/","title":{"rendered":"Ratcliffe: Use of Signal was &#8216;permissible,&#8217; &#8216;lawful&#8217;- Washington Examiner"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fratcliffe-use-of-signal-was-permissible-lawful-washington-examiner%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2415055&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>In a recent Senate hearing, CIA Director John Ratcliffe defended the legality of his participation in a Signal group chat that discussed military strategies against the Houthi rebels in Yemen. During questioning by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Ratcliffe asserted that communicating and coordinating for work purposes on the encrypted messaging app was permissible, as long as formal channels recorded any decisions made. Despite concerns from Senate Democrats about operational security and the use of Signal for sensitive discussions, Ratcliffe maintained that his messages did not include classified information.<\/p>\n<p>The controversy arose after reports indicated that Ratcliffe and othre senior officials, including Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, were part of a discussion in which they inadvertently included journalist Jeffrey Goldberg. This exposure led to fears regarding the protection of classified information, as the <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\">group chat involved strategic military operations<\/a>. Ratcliffe emphasized that Signal was installed on his CIA device and had been deemed acceptable for official use prior to the Biden governance. Senators have expressed outrage, arguing that such casual use of technology for discussing national security matters compromises safety. Both Ratcliffe and Gabbard are expected to continue their testimonies before the House Intelligence Committee.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><\/p>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-header-search-button-mob dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search\" aria-labelledby=\"td-header-search-button\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search-inner\">\n<form method=\"get\" class=\"tdb-search-form\" action=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\"><\/form>\n<div class=\"tdb-aj-search\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/#\" role=\"button\" aria-label=\"Search\" class=\"tdb-head-search-btn dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<h1 class=\"tdb-title-text\">Ratcliffe: Signal was approved for communication use by Biden administration<\/h1>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-title-line\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div id=\"Brid_2074441\" class=\"tpd-featured-video bridtv\"><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/cia\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"Signal group chat\">CIA<\/a> Director <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/john-ratcliffe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"Signal group chat\">John Ratcliffe<\/a> maintained in a heated exchange before a Senate panel that his participation in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/policy\/defense\/3357053\/journalist-jeffrey-goldberg-signal-group-chat-national-security-bomb-houthis\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"Signal group chat\">Signal group chat<\/a>, which discussed attacking the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/houthis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"Signal group chat\">Houthis<\/a>, was above the books and completely legal.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;It is permissible to use to communicate and coordinate for work purposes provided, provided, senator, that any decisions made are also recorded through formal channels,&rdquo; Ratcliffe testified on Capitol Hill on Tuesday morning. &ldquo;My communications, to be clear, in a single message group were entirely permissible and lawful and did not include classified information.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<div class=\"recommended-stories\">\n<h2>Recommended Stories<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/policy\/defense\/3357983\/tom-cotton-intel-committee-focus-away-from-signal-group-chat-leak\/\">Tom Cotton recommends Intel Committee &#8216;focus&#8217; away from group chat leak<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/policy\/defense\/3357846\/the-flagrant-flouting-of-operational-security-rules-lands-waltz-and-hegseth-in-the-hot-seat-and-raises-many-questions\/\">The flagrant flouting of operational security rules lands Waltz and Hegseth in the hot seat and raises many questions<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/policy\/defense\/3357407\/tulsi-gabbard-john-ratcliffe-congress-signal-group-chat-houthis\/\">Gabbard and Ratcliffe to be grilled over Signal group chat that exposed Houthi plans to reporter<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-paywall\">\n<p>The CIA chief and other top <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/nbc-news-covers-the-biden-administration\/\" title=\"NBC News Covers the ...\u00a0\">national security officials<\/a> showed down with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Tuesday. Democrats grilled the Trump administration officials over their involvement in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/state-department-skirted-mandate-funding-censorship-groups-gop\/\" title=\"State Department skirted mandate funding &#039;censorship&#039; groups: GOP\">secret group chat<\/a> in which members discussed moving forward with a plan to attack the Yemen-based Houthis.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">From left, Gen. Timothy Haugh, director of the National Security Agency; FBI Director Kash Patel; Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard; CIA Director John Ratcliffe; and Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on &ldquo;Worldwide Threats&rdquo; on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., March 25, 2025. (Photo by SAUL LOEB\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), the top Democrat on the panel, asked Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to confirm their participation in the group chat.<\/p>\n<p>Gabbard refused to acknowledge herself as &ldquo;TG&rdquo; in the group chat but maintained that no classified information was shared there.<\/p>\n<p>Ratcliffe broke with Gabbard and admitted that he was the &ldquo;John Ratcliffe&rdquo; in the group chat but insisted that the government loaded the encrypted messaging app onto his work device and permitted him to use it to communicate with colleagues.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;One of the first things that happened when I was confirmed as CIA director was Signal was loaded onto my computer at the CIA, as it is for most CIA officers,&rdquo; said Ratcliffe. &ldquo;One of the things that I was briefed on very early, senator, was by the CIA records management folks about the use of Signal as a permissible work use. It is. That is a practice that preceded&nbsp;the current administration to the Biden administration.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) attacked Ratcliffe for using the app in such a casual, everyday manner.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;This is just a normal day at the CIA, where we chat about this kind of stuff over Signal. In fact, it&rsquo;s so normal that the last administration left it here for us. That&rsquo;s your testimony,&rdquo; Bennet said.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s your testimony,&rdquo; Ratcliffe responded. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t say any of those things.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The Trump administration came under fire Monday after the<em> Atlantic <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/policy\/defense\/3357053\/journalist-jeffrey-goldberg-signal-group-chat-national-security-bomb-houthis\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">exposed<\/a> that one of its journalists was mistakenly added to a Signal group chat with top defense and national security officials as they discussed an attack against the Houthis.<\/p>\n<p>Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of the outlet, wrote in a story Monday that he was added to the group chat &ldquo;Houthi PC small group&rdquo;&nbsp;and&nbsp;was accidentally tipped off to strikes in Yemen two hours before the U.S. military operation occurred.<\/p>\n<p>The officials in the group chat shared whether they believed Trump should support an operational attack against the Houthis. Trump ultimately favored moving forward, which the officials in the group chat celebrated after the attack occurred.<\/p>\n<p>The incident triggered fury from Democrats, who said the Trump administration had no respect for protecting classified information by choosing to discuss a top secret strategy on a tech app, which is not allowed.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Make no mistake, these actions make America less safe,&rdquo; Warner said.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/white-house\/3357857\/trump-waltz-houthi-group-chat-leak\/#google_vignette\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">TRUMP STANDS BY HEGSETH AFTER HOUTHI GROUP CHAT LEAK<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Other senior administration officials in the group chat included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, national security adviser Mike Waltz, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, among others.<\/p>\n<p>Gabbard and Ratcliffe will have to testify again Wednesday before the House Intelligence Committee.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <script data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/cdn-cgi\/scripts\/5c5dd728\/cloudflare-static\/email-decode.min.js\"><\/script><script>!function(){var g=window;g.googletag=g.googletag||{},g.googletag.cmd=g.googletag.cmd||[],g.googletag.cmd.push(function(){g.googletag.pubads().setTargeting(\"has-featured-video\",\"true\")})}();<\/script><script>var _bp=_bp||[];_bp.push({\"div\":\"Brid_2074441\",\"obj\":{\"id\":\"27789\",\"width\":\"1280\",\"height\":\"720\",\"stickyDirection\":\"below\",\"video\":\"2074441\"}});<\/script><script defer src=\"https:\/\/services.brid.tv\/player\/build\/brid.min.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ratcliffe: Signal approved for communication by Biden admin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2655,"featured_media":2415056,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/John-Ratcliffe-signal.webp","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21164,52088,7858,13538,32076],"class_list":["post-2415055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-lawful","tag-permissible","tag-ratcliffe","tag-signal","tag-washington-examiner"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/John-Ratcliffe-signal.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2415055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2655"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2415055"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2415055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2415059,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2415055\/revisions\/2415059"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2415056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2415055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2415055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2415055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}