Signalgate scandal: US President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Mike Waltz says app was ‘recommended’ by…

US President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, Mike Waltz, has claimed that the encrypted messaging app, Signal, which played a central role in the recent "Signalgate" scandal, was "recommended" to him. Waltz, who was removed from his post in May, said that he was using the commercially available app for discussing a sensitive military operation after it was recommended by the Biden administration. The incident in question involved him mistakenly adding The Atlantic editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, to a Signal group chat (that included Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, as well as other government officials) that was used to discuss a US military operation in Yemen. Testifying at a recent Senate hearing for his nomination as US ambassador to the United Nations, Waltz was questioned about a potential national security breach that was caused by the “mistake”.Responding to US Senator Chris Coons’ question about whether he had been investigated for using the app to discuss sensitive information, Waltz said, “The use of Signal, as an encrypted app, is not only authorised, it was recommended in the Biden era CISA guidance.”In this reply, Waltz was talking about a set of guidelines which was released by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in November 2024 to address cyber espionage activities linked to the People’s Republic of China. CISA is the federal body tasked with safeguarding cybersecurity and infrastructure across the US government and states.According to a report by The Independent, this advisory was intended to be general guidance. The CISA policy introduced during the Biden administration, which was aimed specifically at government employees, also discouraged using personal devices for work-related tasks, the report notes.At the same time, the Department of Defence also had a stricter policy which explicitly prohibited Signal and other encrypted commercial messaging apps. The policy stated that they were “not authorised to access, transmit, process non-public DoD information,” the report adds.However, Waltz and other Trump officials have maintained that no classified information was shared in their group chat and that Signal was authorised to some extent. While defending his use of the app. Waltz reiterated this point to Senator Coons.