On Wednesday, a top Republican lawmaker revealed that his Signal chats were hacked by Russia. The news comes as the Trump administration is hit by a new scandal involving its attempts to conceal its communications using the app.
“Signal is not secure and not good for sensitive communications,” posted Representative Don Bacon (R-NE). “I was notified by law enforcement and House cyber experts that Russia hacked my Signal months ago.” Bacon likely knows what he’s talking about. Not only does he sit on the House Armed Services Committee, but he specifically Chairs the Cyber, Information Technologies and Innovation subcommittee.
The representative made the statement along with a retweet of an article by the Atlantic that published Monday, in which it was revealed that several top Trump officials have continued to use secret Signal chats to discuss national security matters, despite the president's warning against it. Last year, after an embarrassing incident in which a journalist was accidentally added to a Signal chat discussing sensitive war plans, Trump noted, “I think we learned: Maybe don’t use Signal, okay?” A month later, he doubled down, saying, “I would frankly tell these people not to use Signal.”
But a smattering of White House officials — including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Dan Caine, and others — continued to use the app anyway.
According to the Atlantic, the latest revelations involve “13 Signal chats from the first six months of 2025 that have not been previously reported. The new records are screenshots of Signal groups that mostly lack context about when they were formed and what was discussed. The identities of nearly all of the group members are visible, revealing even broader use of Signal by top Trump-administration officials than was previously known. The names of the groups are also telling, including one called ‘Iran/Ukraine Planning’ and another labeled ‘State USAID.’”
What’s more, “The records raise the possibility that top administration officials failed to follow federal laws that require the preservation of government records.” Screenshots show that chats were set to automatically delete messages, raising questions about whether communications were retained elsewhere.
According to Skye Perryman, the president and CEO of Democracy Forward, these three chats are “likely violations” of the Federal Records Act. She declared as much in a letter sent Monday to the National Archives and Records Administration, explaining, “Given that numerous agency heads are personally implicated in these likely FRA violations, your action to initiate an enforcement action is critical.”
When asked for comment about the chats, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly referred to them as “old news,” saying, “As we have said, Signal is an approved app that is pre-loaded on government phones.”
While Signal is considered one of the more secure digital communication apps available to the public, it is still known to be vulnerable to hacking. As retired Army Special Forces and Atlantic Council's Counterterrorism Project member Mike Nelson tweet-shouted, “regardless of one's faith in the security of the app itself (it isn't as secure as people believe), THE UNCLASSIFIED DEVICES UPON WHICH IT'S LOADED ARE NOT SECURE.”