But His Gmail: National Security Advisor Waltz’s Private Email Hypocrisy
from the the-best-hypocrites-trump-can-find dept
Remember Mike Waltz? The National Security Advisor who’s spent the last few weeks demonstrating his profound inability to handle basic security? First, there was the illegal Signal chat where he accidentally added a journalist while discussing potential war crimes. Then we learned about his completely exposed Venmo contacts and leaked passwords. And now, in a twist that would be too on-the-nose for fiction, it turns out the same official who previously demanded DOJ action over private email use… has been conducting government business through Gmail.
Ah, but her emails.
All this seems less than great for the top “security” official in the administration.
Members of President Donald Trump’s National Security Council, including White House national security adviser Michael Waltz, have conducted government business over personal Gmail accounts, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post and interviews with three U.S. officials.
The use of Gmail, a far less secure method of communication than the encrypted messaging app Signal, is the latest example of questionable data security practices by top national security officials already under fire for the mistaken inclusion of a journalist in a group chat about high-level planning for military operations in Yemen.
A senior Waltz aide used the commercial email service for highly technical conversations with colleagues at other government agencies involving sensitive military positions and powerful weapons systems relating to an ongoing conflict, according to emails reviewed by The Post. While the NSC official used his Gmail account, his interagency colleagues used government-issued accounts, headers from the email correspondence show.
This is, needless to say, pretty fucking bad. First, there’s the basic security incompetence: the National Security Advisor conducting sensitive government business through a commercial email service. Even if Gmail has robust security, it’s completely inappropriate for handling government communications — giving Google potential access to sensitive national security discussions that should never leave secured government systems.
But more concerning is what this reveals about Waltz’s (lack of) judgment. As National Security Advisor, he’s one of the highest-value targets for foreign intelligence services. Every personal account, every commercial service he uses represents another potential vulnerability for adversaries to exploit. And given his demonstrated pattern of security failures — from exposed Venmo contacts to leaked passwords — it’s clear he’s making their job easier.
The National Security Council’s response is a masterclass in missing the point (or, more accurately, misdirecting from the point). When pressed about “sensitive military matters” being discussed over Gmail, their spokesperson offered this gem:
Hughes said NSC staff have guidance about using “only secure platforms for classified information.”
This attempt at reassurance actually reveals the depth of the problem. The distinction isn’t just between classified and unclassified information — it’s about maintaining basic operational security for all sensitive government communications.
And as if to underscore how little they grasp this, we learned from a WSJ article that Waltz’s infamous Signal chat wasn’t a one-off mistake.
Two U.S. officials also said that Waltz has created and hosted multiple other sensitive national security conversations on Signal with cabinet members, including separate threads on how to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine as well as military operations
The scale of security failures here should be absolutely disqualifying for any administration official, let alone America’s top national security advisor. But what makes this situation particularly galling is Waltz’s own history of grandstanding about private email use. Here he is in a tweet that remains up from less than two years ago:
Yes, that’s the same Mike Waltz demanding DOJ action over private email use by a previous National Security Advisor. The hypocrisy would be merely annoying if the stakes weren’t so high. But this isn’t just about scoring political points — it’s about the fundamental security of our nation’s most sensitive communications.
By Waltz’s own standard, articulated in that still-visible tweet, the DOJ should be investigating his wanton use of private commercial messaging services. But more importantly, someone needs to ask: if this is how carelessly our National Security Advisor handles basic operational security, what other vulnerabilities has he created that we don’t yet know about?
Filed Under: but her emails, communications, gmail, mike waltz, national security
Comments on “But His Gmail: National Security Advisor Waltz’s Private Email Hypocrisy”
Republican commits war crimes? 'No big deal'. Democrat breathes? 'Off with their head!'
Nothing like making crystal clear that your involvement with the hyperventilation over Hilary’s emails was only because of her political affiliation and had nothing to do with what she’d actually done.
Ah well, I’m sure Mike Waltz is merely an outlier and the rest of the people who were demanding investigations, charges and jail time for Hilary running a private email server will be just as equally outraged by Mike Waltz’s disastrous and deliberate gross mishandling of sensitive and valuable government and military communications.
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You have my vote for Most Insightful Comment of the Week|Month|Year.
Republicans and trumpists agree, they just can’t get enough buttery males!
Well THAT is an understatement.
Signal is at least secure as long as the hardware on both ends is secure.
Gmail is essentially the same as writing your stuff on a postcard and giving it to an advertising agency to do with as they want before they deliver the postcard to the intended recipient.
Ads on Waltzs Gmail account that he most certainly could not refuse to click:
“We help you commit war crimes – serving inept government operatives – connect with us on Signal”
“Best most secure vpn service provider – free! Click here”
“Private secure Russian email servers for govt employees – also free!”
Remember folks, I’m sure Matt would want you all to know he voted for this. These two events back to back would result in jail time for anyone else. Multi, willful, violation of national security laws.
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Yep. With Bratty Matty struggling against the spam filter these days, it’s important that others speak up to remind everyone that this is what he voted for.
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Only if they’re Democrats, not if they’re Republican.
Let’s also remember that everything sent to Hillary’s email server was not classified when it was sent. Just when the email was analyzed at a later date, it was decided that it should have been classified.
Meanwhile, sending attack plan details to a reporter hours before planes will be arriving is okay. What if the reporter hadn’t been smart enough to know now to publish what he was seeing. It doesn’t even take an enemy of the US, just a moron which describes 95% of the population.
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Gah, I always have to point out to people that if someone emailed stuff that was classified to her unclassified email…the sender broke the law. The recovery could, potentially have as well, but only if they knowingly received it. And that’s why nobody went to jail for it. Because Hillary wouldn’t have, and dozens of other people would have.
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TIL: 95% of the American population have IQs higher than 50 and less than 71.
That's resilience against attacks for you!
And just why would a National Security Advisor be a high-value target here? Because their communications will commit advice on what the highest-security practices of the U.S. government are.
Now Waltz is full of shit, and a twelve-year old would know better about good security practices.
That means that foreign security operators eavesdropping on Waltz will get mushy in the brain and no longer know secure from insecure. And it won’t help them because nobody in the U.S. would listen to an idiot like Waltz regarding security. Instead they’d need to eavesdrop on all the twelve-year olds talking about security.
And they talk youth lingo and won’t be understood by operators having learnt English in the past millennium. And they are too many to target effectively.
Hiding competence from adversaries is the ultimate weapon of the Trump administration, and the way this administration presents itself, they are true masters at it.
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He’s just flooding the zone with potentially fake intel. They’ll never know what’s up!
Now paging Ketamine Koby to the white courtesy forum.
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We already know Koby voted for this.
Note that Gmail was compromised years ago
Of course it was: it’s an obvious, enormous, poorly-defended target brimming with all kinds of information that’s useful to foreign intelligence services, organized crime syndicates, terrorists, identify thieves, stalkers, data brokers, etc. Google has no chance of keeping it secure in the face of that much clueful, well-funded, determined hostile action — which of course includes insider attack. After all: you don’t have to break in if you’re already in.
Whatever Waltz received was probably being read in Moscow, Beijing, and elsewhere before he read it. And of course anything he sent was silently copied to the same destinations.
It’s only an obvious target if it is used for sensitive information, and since it would both interfere with FOI requests as well as with secrecy mandates, no responsible government employee would have dared use it for official communications.
The “legitimate” reason to make Gmail access a must-have for foreigh adversaries is not government communication but private communication. Namely, blackmail material. That, in turn, can then be converted into valuable intelligence.
Now this government of morons allows the foreign adversaries to “skip the middle-man” and tap Gmail for the classified information directly. I doubt that the Russian Department of Government Efficiency will now fire secret service operators in masse after having simplified their job description by letting Trump get elected.
Need more support when pointing out hypocrisy
It’s becoming too easy to point out right-wing hypocrisy; examples are showing up on a daily basis. But we need to do a better job covering these.
When calling out something for being hypocritical, it’s essential to either:
a) Explain which of the two contradictory positions was correct; or
b) Explain how the two seemingly-contradictory positions were both wrong, due to differing circumstances
In this case, if Waltz is wrong in his current handling of sensitive information, does this mean he was correct in calling out Clinton’s mishandling of sensitive information?
Because unless you explain the differing circumstances, you’re open to claims of hypocrisy yourself. E.g., “At the time, you said that Clinton’s private email server wasn’t a big problem, but now you’re saying that Waltz’s transgressions deserve severe sanctions.”
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Except… we did call out Clinton’s use of a private email server as a major security breach.
https://www.techdirt.com/2016/06/24/emails-show-hillary-clintons-email-server-was-massive-security-headache-set-up-to-route-around-foia-requests/
It’s weird that you assume we were hypocritical. We were not. Both are bad. Both deserved to be investigated.
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But whereas Hillary was investigated for years over this, Waltz will be given an “attaboy” from Trump and this story will disappear overnight. As always, hypocrisy is a virtue to fascists.
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Oh, you misunderstood me; this was just an example of a problem that crops up whenever hypocrisy is called out.
I wasn’t claiming that you or Techdirt are being hypocritical. I’m just saying that when calling out hypocrisy, the person making the claim should put a stake in the ground: was one of the two positions right? And if not, why not?
So in the case of this post, I would have preferred if it had included a statement such as, “Waltz had a good point in his tweet about Clinton’s email server” along with the link to the earlier Techdirt article. Doing that instantly inoculates you against future claims of hypocrisy yourself.
A different example: Suppose I wrote, “Oh, Mitch McConnell was hypocritical because he said 10 months wasn’t enough time to start proceedings on Garland’s nomination, but then 4 months was somehow enough for Coney Barrett’s nomination.” An excellent point, but then I should really explain which, if either, of McConnell’s two positions was reasonable.
Otherwise, when I write in 2030 that 3 months was enough time to confirm Jasmine Crockett’s nomination to the Supreme Court, someone might reasonably claim that I was being hypocritical, just like McConnell was. But if I state my position at the time I’m calling out McConnell, not only do I come across as reasonable and thoughtful, but it insulates me from reciprocal claims of hypocrisy.
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A hypocrite can have a point and still look like a hypocrite because they don’t apply that point to themselves. Even if Waltz had a point about Clinton’s email server, his own actions undermine that point and therefore his own credibility. What’s the use of saying “well that hypocrite had a point” if their hypocrisy overshadows the point?