The elements of the scandal are not in dispute. The White House’s national security team chatted in an unsecured Signal group about sensitive operational details of a military strike in Yemen — and they accidentally included Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, in their online conversation. Not surprisingly, the revelations about this debacle have created an uproar in political and national security circles.
But there’s a legal dimension to the White House fiasco, too.
Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware said this week, “Every single one of the government officials on this text chain have now committed a crime — even if accidentally — that would normally involve a jail sentence.” Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts added that members of Donald Trump’s operation engaged in “blatantly illegal” misconduct.
This leads to a rather obvious question: If senior members of the White House national security team are credibly accused of possible crimes, will the Justice Department agree to examine the matter? As NBC News reported, the nation’s chief law enforcement official offered an answer — sort of.
While talking to reporters in Manassas, Virginia, about the arrest of an alleged gang member, [Attorney General Pam Bondi] was asked if the Department of Justice is involved in the Signal chat controversy. Bondi didn’t answer the question, but said, ‘It was sensitive info — not classified — and inadvertently released. What we should be talking about is it was a very successful mission. Our world is now safer because of that mission. We’re not going to comment any further on that.’
The Republican lawyer then commented further, taking needless cheap shots at former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the private email server she used more than a decade ago, as well as documents former President Joe Biden inadvertently took to his home nine years ago.
REPORTER: The Signal chat controversy — is DOJ involved? If so, why? If not, why not?BONDI: It was sensitive info, not classified. What we should be talking about is it was a very successful mission… if you want to talk about classified information, talk about what was at Hillary Clinton's home
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-03-27T16:34:04.758Z
Bondi concluded, “This was not classified information, and we are very pleased with the results of that operation.”
Oh, where to begin.
First, the idea that precise operational details about a foreign military operation were not “classified” is difficult to take seriously. As Ryan Goodman, a New York University law professor and former special counsel at the Pentagon, noted via Bluesky, “I worked at the Pentagon. If information like this is not classified, nothing is.” Second, it’s not the attorney general’s job to make public assessments on the efficacy of missile strikes. Third, there is ample reason to believe that the officials involved in “Signalgate” did, in fact, cross legal lines — and there are no exceptions to the law based on whether or not “we are very pleased with the results” of an operation. And fourth, while Bondi seems eager to play the role of brazen political partisan — again — the fact remains that the Clinton and Biden matters were (a) far less serious than Team Trump’s debacle; and (b) thoroughly reviewed by federal law enforcement. But as relevant as these details are, what we’re left is a sadly predictable conclusion: The Justice Department has a responsibility to investigate the generation’s most scandalous White House security breach. And apparently the attorney general doesn’t seem to care.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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