A Disregard for the Rules Trickles Down From Trump to His Aides
“President Trump’s cavalier attitude towards classified information, exemplified by actions like sharing sensitive intelligence with Russia and storing classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, has influenced his administration. This disregard for government rules and safeguards is evident in recent incidents involving the use of Signal, a commercial messaging app, by national security officials to discuss classified military strikes. Critics argue this lax approach poses risks to national security and highlights a lack of understanding among inexperienced administration officials about the importance of classification protocols.
Many of the people serving in the administration do not have decades of experience in government, or deep knowledge of its rules and why they exist, former officials say.
President Trump has long had, at best, a cavalier attitude about the handling of classified material.
In his first term, he took a photograph of a satellite image of an Iranian launch site that had been included in his daily intelligence brief and posted it on social media.
During a meeting in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump shared a tip with the Russian foreign minister from Israeli intelligence about a terror plot — then asked intelligence officials to go on television exonerating him.
And when Mr. Trump left office, he stacked classified documents — and other records the Justice Department said had been improperly taken from the White House — in a bathroom at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Now, Mr. Trump’s attitudes and actions are coming under renewed scrutiny as the national security adviser, defense secretary and multiple cabinet members face questions about their use of Signal, a commercial messaging app, to discuss details of impending military strikes many experts say were classified.
The conversation was described in an article Monday by The Atlantic’s editor in chief, who was mistakenly added to the group chat.
By Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Trump conceded that he “didn’t know” if the information disclosed was classified or not. Still, he seemed far more concerned about how the editor had been added to the chat than about whether Americans had been put at risk.
And that, former officials say, goes to a disrespect of government, its rules and safeguards, that has trickled down from the president to his key aides. The former officials spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation from the White House or its allies.
The line from Trump administration officials, including the director of national intelligence, was that nothing classified was shared.
The response was met with incredulity among Democrats, who noted that the chat included the times pilots would take off to conduct airstrikes, details that are usually closely guarded secrets.
“The casualness with which he dealt with information has clearly become the culture of this new team,” said Sue Gordon, who was a top intelligence official in the first Trump administration. “I think it bespeaks a breathtaking lack of understanding of the reality of the risks posed by very capable adversaries and competitors who would advance their interests at the expense of ours.”
Military experts say Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, appears to have retyped information from classified documents or a classified message from U.S. Central Command and placed it into the Signal group for the senior officials.
That is, in the world of intelligence, a huge error.
All intelligence officers and military personnel are taught to never take intelligence from a “high side,” or secret, computer, and retype it on a “low side” computer that is attached to the internet.
Taking a shortcut can cost people their security clearance, and their jobs, according to former officials.
But the guidelines are part of a slow, laborious and bureaucratic process, all things the Trump administration has antipathy for.
By and large, Mr. Trump has chosen people for his new administration who do not have decades of experience in government, or knowledge of its rules and why they exist, but who share his desire to remake it.
Mr. Trump has put people on his national security team who are good on television and social media in making a public case for the administration.
As a result, many administration officials do not have a deep understanding of how or why information is classified. And, one former official said, inexperienced people, even if they are smart, make mistakes.
Republicans frequently criticize former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s handling of classified materials after he left the vice presidency in 2017. But unlike Mr. Trump, a special counsel noted, Mr. Biden returned the classified documents and cooperated with an investigation.
Democrats in Congress have zeroed in on Mr. Hegseth’s messages in the Signal chat that revealed the launch times for different waves of attacks against Houthi militia targets in Yemen.
But some former officials say even the policy discussion in the chat led by Vice President JD Vance would have been classified. Mr. Vance spoke candidly about whether the United States’ European allies could protect their own trade routes from Houthi attacks in the Red Sea.
When others in the chat argued in favor of the strikes, Mr. Vance said he would support them but added, “I just hate bailing Europe out again.”
It is the kind of deliberation that the U.S. government might want to keep secret, and that an adversary would want access to.
“If there is anything that should be top secret it is the views of senior national leaders about foreign governments, and the deliberations and rationales around that,” said Glenn Gerstell, a former general counsel for the National Security Agency. “That is rule number one in the classification book.”
The bulk of the criticism of Mr. Trump and his national security team has come from Democrats on Capitol Hill. But Senate Republicans have raised questions. One of them, Roger Wicker of Mississippi, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, expressed concern and asked the Pentagon’s acting inspector general to conduct an inquiry.
“If true, this reporting raises questions as to the use of unclassified networks to discuss sensitive and classified information, as well as the sharing of such information with those who do not have proper clearance and need to know,” Mr. Wicker and Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island who is the committee’s ranking member, wrote to the acting inspector general.
Beyond Capitol Hill, there are some signs that the questions about the administration’s loose attitude toward secrets have penetrated a broader American conversation.
Dave Portnoy, who is the founder and owner of Barstool Sports and a supporter of the Trump administration, posted what he called a “political rant” on social media on Wednesday. The six-minute video has millions of views.
In the video, Mr. Portnoy repeatedly says he hates The Atlantic, which he considers hostile to the Trump administration. But also he said the information put into the messaging group should not have been shared there and that the issue should be treated seriously.
“It’s super sensitive, it’s super classified,” Mr. Portnoy said. “And if this information somehow got out to the Houthis — and I assume in situations like this things move at the speed of light — lots of American soldiers could have died, lives in jeopardy. To me a major, major, major glitch in intelligence and just a huge mistake.”
Mr. Portnoy also took issue with what he characterized as Mr. Trump’s downplaying of the leak.
“This isn’t right,” Mr. Portnoy said. “In this new administration you want to take accountability. Somebody has to go down.”
Julian E. Barnes covers the U.S. intelligence agencies and international security matters for The Times. He has written about security issues for more than two decades“
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