Sue Gordon, the former deputy director of national intelligence in the first Trump administration, said the “risk of loss” from the Signal group chat could have been “profound.”
Gordon joined CBS News’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday, where she was asked to weigh in on top Trump administration officials using the app to coordinate its attack against the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
“There is nothing about the information that has to do with operations that is appropriate for this communications channel,” Gordon began. “None.”
“And there are other communications channels that are available for this type of thing, and the risk of loss that comes with uncontrolled communication is profound,” she continued.
Gordon, like other officials, was sounding the alarm after it was revealed that agency heads added The Atlantic’s editor in chief to the Signal group chat.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth originally said no war plans were shared, but a second round of released screenshots showed he messaged about the attack location, time and weapons used.
Democrats have called for an investigation into the matter and raised concern about the use of the app for official communication, particularly when there are other lines of more secure communication.
The White House defended the agency heads, and President Trump has claimed that it was not a big deal.
Gordon said she believes it shouldn’t have happened at all.
“I don’t think we need to argue at any level whether it was appropriate for this to happen,” she said. “We can talk about how that happened, we can talk about what they could have done, and we can talk about what to do next, but on the top line, this isn’t what you discuss in those channels."
