President Trump‘s downplaying of the #Signalgate scandal as a mere “glitch” is the latest entry in a long-running — and ever-expanding — legacy of indifference toward America’s secrets.
Why it matters: No president has expressed such open disdain for the U.S. intelligence community or the security protocols designed to protect it. But even after facing criminal charges in 2023, Trump has never suffered enduring political consequences.
- That’s given his allies confidence that The Atlantic bombshell will blow over — and that the White House “can easily handle what would kill any other administration,” as one adviser told Axios’ Marc Caputo.
Zoom in: Look no further than the prosecution Trump faced — and ultimately survived — for allegedly retaining classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after he left office.
- The indictment was salacious: Special counsel Jack Smith accused Trump of stashing “national defense information” — i.e., nuclear secrets — in non-secure locations throughout his golf club, including a bathroom.
- Trump allegedly showed off “highly confidential” military documents to guests who didn’t have security clearances, and then tried to obstruct the government from reclaiming the documents.
Throughout the prosecution, which was dismissed in July 2024 by Judge Aileen Cannon, Trump maintained his innocence and falsely insisted that the Mar-a-Lago documents were his personal property.
- After Trump won the election and returned to the White House, the FBI returned some of the materials it had seized from Mar-a-Lago — a moment of triumph for a president who never admitted a scintilla of wrongdoing.
The big picture: National security experts were appalled by Trump’s alleged conduct in the Mar-a-Lago case, but the president has been consistent across his two terms in his disregard for intelligence protocols.
- In May 2017, the Washington Post reported that Trump revealed highly classified information to Russia’s foreign minister and ambassador inside the Oval Office, sending U.S. officials scrambling to contain the damage.
- In July 2018, Trump publicly sided with Russian President Vladimir Putin over U.S. intelligence agencies in their assessment that Moscow had interfered in the 2016 election.
- In August 2019, Trump tweeted out a surveillance photo of an Iranian launch site that experts suspected was obtained from a classified satellite or drone.
The trend has continued into Trump’s second administration, with the careless handling of classified information sometimes compounded by a lack of government experience.
- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s decision to share sensitive war plans in a Signal group — let alone one that accidentally included The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, who wrote about it — is a prime example.
- But it’s not an isolated one: Counterintelligence experts sounded the alarm in February after the CIA sent an unclassified email to the White House containing the personal information of all agents hired over the last two years.
The other side: Trump has taken a harder line on classified information when it’s been leaked in damaging news coverage, such as the recent New York Times report about the Pentagon plans to brief Elon Musk on secret China war contingencies.
- The Pentagon has launched an investigation into the purported leak of classified information, even while calling the report “inaccurate.”
Between the lines: In virtually every case, Trump has responded to criticism of his handling of classified information by lashing out at critics and arguing that no damage was done.
- National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, who created the Signal chat that’s now receiving such scrutiny, took that approach Tuesday — praising the Houthi strikes while accusing Goldberg of “making up lies.”
- Whether Trump’s Teflon armor will extend to Waltz, Hegseth and the other 16 officials implicated in the stunning leak remains uncertain.
The bottom line: From Trump’s indictment to Hillary Clinton’s emails to Joe Biden’s poor memory, U.S. leadership’s handling of classified information has played an outsized role in shaping the last 10 years of American politics.
- #Signalgate suggests there are still many lessons to be learned.