As Waltz faces UN post hearings, an update on the Signal situation that led to his initial ousting

As Mike Waltz President Donald Trump s nominee for U S ambassador to the United Nations appears before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Tuesday for his confirmation hearing focus returns to his ousting as national defense adviser over what specific referred to as Signalgate The former Florida Republican congressman served mere weeks in Trump s administration before revelations that he mistakenly added journalist Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic to a private Signal chat that was used to discuss sensitive military plans including planning for strikes on Houthi militants in Yemen Calls came expeditiously for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to be removed from office accompanied by criticism of the Trump administration for failing to take action against the top national defense functionaries who discussed plans for the military strike in Signal After weeks of scrutiny Waltz left his defense post but was swiftly nominated to the U N position Months after the chat was disclosed questions remain over the argument including if federal laws were violated if classified information was exposed on the commercial messaging app and if anyone else will face consequences Here s what we know and don t know KNOWN Signal is a publicly available app that provides encrypted communications but it can be hacked It is not approved for carrying classified information On March one day before the strikes the Defense Department cautioned personnel about the vulnerability of Signal specifically that Russia was attempting to hack the app according to a U S official who was not authorized to speak to the press and spoke on the condition of anonymity One known vulnerability is that a malicious actor if they have access to a person s phone can link their own device to the user s Signal and monitor messages remotely NOT KNOWN How frequently the administration and the Defense Department use Signal for sensitive leadership communications and whether those on the chat were using unauthorized personal devices to transmit or receive those messages The department put out an instruction in restricting what information could be posted on unauthorized and unclassified systems At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing earlier this year Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard would not say whether she was accessing the information on her personal phone or government-issued phone citing an ongoing examination by the National Protection Council KNOWN The regime has a requirement under the Presidential Records Act to archive all of those planning discussions NOT KNOWN Whether anyone in the group archived the messages as required by law to a administration server The images of the text chain posted by The Atlantic show that the messages were set to disappear in one week KNOWN Hegseth had an internet connection that bypassed the Pentagon s protection protocols known in the IT industry as a dirty internet line set up in his office to use Signal on a personal computer two people familiar with the line have informed The Associated Press Other Pentagon offices have used them particularly if there s a need to monitor information or websites that would otherwise be blocked The biggest advantage of using such a line is that the user would not show up as an IP address assigned to the Defense Department essentially the user is masked according to a senior U S official familiar with military framework prevention NOT KNOWN If use of the line left any Defense-related materials more vulnerable than they would have been on a Pentagon secure line KNOWN The chat group included members including Jeffrey Goldberg top editor of The Atlantic The group called Houthi PC Small Group likely for Houthi principals committee was comprised of Trump s senior-most advisers on national defense including Gabbard Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe The National Guard Council revealed the text chain appears to be authentic NOT KNOWN How Goldberg got added Waltz reported he built the message chain and didn t know how Goldberg ended up on the chat He called it a mistake KNOWN Just hours before the attack on the Houthis in Yemen began Hegseth shared details on the timing targets weapons and sequence of strikes that would take place NOT KNOWN Whether the information was classified Gabbard Ratcliffe and the White House have all disclosed it was not classified and Hegseth stated the same in a post on social media Democrats announced that strains credulity KNOWN Hegseth has adamantly denied that war plans were texted on Signal something current and former U S authorities called semantics War plans carry a specific meaning They often refer to the numbered and highly classified planning documents sometimes thousands of pages long that would inform U S decisions in circumstance of a major conflict But the information Hegseth did post specific attack details selecting human and weapons storage targets was a subset of those plans and was likely informed by the same classified intelligence Posting those details to an unclassified app risked tipping off adversaries of the pending attack and could have put U S system members at jeopardy multiple U S agents stated Sharing that information on a commercial app like Signal in advance of a strike would be a violation of everything that we re about declared former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel who served under Democratic President Barack Obama NOT KNOWN If anyone outside the messaging group got access to the Signal texts KNOWN Hegseth began cracking down on unauthorized leaks of information inside the Defense Department and his chief of staff issued a memo on March saying the Pentagon would use polygraph tests to determine the sources of modern leaks and prosecute them NOT KNOWN Whether Hegseth will take responsibility for the unauthorized release of national defense information regarding the attack plans on the Houthis Trump in March bristled at a suggestion that Hegseth should step down saying He s doing a great job He had nothing to do with it KNOWN In April Dan Caldwell a senior Hegseth adviser who in the Signal chat had been designated as the secretary s point person was placed on administrative leave and escorted out of the Pentagon by measure Executives who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters explained The AP that the former Marine s sudden downfall was tied to an probe into unauthorized disclosure of department information NOT KNOWN If any others affiliated with the Signal situation will face reprisals KNOWN Also in April Hegseth was forced to defend himself against a second assertion that he shared classified material through an unapproved and unsecured setup this time taking airstrike information from a military communications channel and sharing it in a Signal chat with his wife his brother and others A person familiar with the chat certified to The AP that Hegseth pulled the information such as launch times and bomb drop times of U S warplanes about to strike Houthi targets in Yemen he posted in the chat from a secure communications channel used by U S Central Command NOT KNOWN If that s the extent of Hegseth s Signal usage KNOWN The Pentagon s watchdog has begun looking into Hegseth s use of Signal and also whether any of Hegseth s aides were requested to delete Signal messages that may have shared sensitive military information with a reporter NOT KNOWN What the inspector general will find or what will be done as a impact of those findings Kinnard can be reached at http x com MegKinnardAP Source