Category Archives: US national security

Trump scrambles to claim credit for Israel’s Iran attack he publicly opposed

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Discordant US response as president says he was fully aware of plans for what Marco Rubio called a ‘unilateral action’

Donald Trump is walking a tightrope as he claims that he was fully aware of Israel’s plans to launch massive airstrikes against Iran while continuing to distance the US from those strikes and deny Washington took any active role in the preparations.

The White House’s messaging has shifted quickly from Marco Rubio’s arms-length description of the Israeli attack as a “unilateral action”, to Trump claiming on Friday morning that he was fully in the loop on the operation and that it came at the end of a 60-day ultimatum he had given Iran to “make a deal” on its nuclear programme.

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White House stunned as Hegseth inquiry brings up illegal wiretap claims

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Exclusive: Trump advisers lose confidence in Pentagon leak investigation Hegseth used to justify firing three top aides

The White House has lost confidence in a Pentagon leak investigation that Pete Hegseth used to justify firing three top aides last month, after advisers were told that the aides had supposedly been outed by an illegal warrantless National Security Agency (NSA) wiretap.

The extraordinary explanation alarmed the advisers, who also raised it with people close to JD Vance, because such a wiretap would almost certainly be unconstitutional and an even bigger scandal than a number of leaks.

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Trump says Hegseth is ‘doing a great job’ despite reports of second Signal chat

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US president dismisses criticism of defense secretary sharing information on strikes in Yemen to his family

Donald Trump offered public support for defense secretary Pete Hegseth a day after it emerged that Hegseth had shared information about US strikes in Yemen last month in a second Signal group chat that included family, his personal lawyer and several top Pentagon aides.

“He’s doing a great job. Ask the Houthis how he’s doing,” Trump said dismissively, referring to the rebel group in Yemen targeted by those missile strikes, on the sidelines of the White House Easter egg roll event on Monday.

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Musk’s SpaceX is frontrunner to build Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ missile shield

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SpaceX-led group is pitching the Pentagon on a ‘subscription model’ for missile defense

Elon Musk’s SpaceX and two partners have emerged as frontrunners to win a crucial part of Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense shield, six people familiar with the matter said.

Musk’s rocket and satellite company is partnering with the software maker Palantir and the drone builder Anduril on a bid to build key parts of Golden Dome, the sources said, which has drawn significant interest from the technology sector’s burgeoning base of defense startups.

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Democrats decry reported dismissal of NSA director Tim Haugh

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Lawmakers say dismissing head of US Cyber Command puts country at risk at a time of ‘unprecedented cyber threats’

Top congressional Democrats are protesting against the reported firing of Gen Tim Haugh as director of the National Security Agency (NSA), with one lawmaker saying the decision “makes all of us less safe”.

Haugh and his civilian deputy at the NSA, Wendy Noble, have been dismissed from their roles, the Washington Post reported late on Thursday, with CNN reporting likewise, both outlets citing multiple unnamed officials and other senior sources close to the matter who had requested anonymity.

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Goldberg dismisses Waltz’s Signal leak defense: ‘Numbers don’t just get sucked into other phones’

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Atlantic editor says Trump adviser’s defense for accidentally adding him to war plans chat was implausible

Atlantic magazine editor Jeffrey Goldberg has dismissed the explanation offered by national security adviser Mike Waltz for how he was included in a Trump administration group text chat about – and in advance of – the recent bombing of Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Goldberg said Waltz’s theory that his contact was “sucked in” to his phone via “somebody else’s contact” was implausible.

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Trump has managed to spin Signalgate as a media lapse, not a major security breach | Andrew Roth

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The US administration believes it can divide public attention until there is a new scandal. It may be a winning strategy

When it comes to Trump-era scandals, the shameless responses to “Signalgate”, in which top administration officials discussing details of an impending strike in Yemen in a group chat without noticing the presence of a prominent journalist, should set alarm bells ringing for its brazenness and incompetence.

In a particularly jaw-dropping exchange, Tulsi Gabbard, the United States’ director of national intelligence, was forced to backtrack during a house hearing after she had said that there had been no specific information in the Signal chat about an impending military strike. Then, the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg published the chat in full, contradicting Gabbard’s remarks that no classified data or weapons systems had been mentioned in the chat.

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Canada’s ex-spy chief says White House response to Signal leak threatens ‘Five Eyes’ security

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Former intelligence head said leak and White House response was ‘very worrying’ to allies of the US

Canada’s former spy chief has said the Trump administration’s attempts to downplay the leak of top-secret attack plans is a “very worrying” development, with implications for broader intelligence sharing among US allies.

On Wednesday, the Atlantic magazine published new and detailed messages from a group chat, including plans for US bombings, drone launches and targeting information of the assault, including descriptions of weather conditions. Among the recipients of the messages was a prominent journalist, who was inadvertently added to the group.

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Intelligence chiefs deny they discussed war plans on Signal in House hearing

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National intelligence head Tulsi Gabbard and CIA director John Ratcliffe argue ‘no classified information’ was leaked

US intelligence chiefs on Wednesday denied breaking the law or revealing classified information in a group chat where they discussed details of air strikes on Yemen in the presence of a journalist, despite allegations from Democrats that the leak was reckless and possibly illegal.

The director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and CIA director, John Ratcliffe, were giving their second day of congressional testimony on global threats facing the United States, which Democratic lawmakers seized on to condemn their use of the Signal app to discuss arrangements to bomb the Houthis in a group that included Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic.

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Newly shared Signal messages show Trump advisers discussed Yemen attack plans

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The Atlantic releases more text from chat after Trump officials claimed none of it was ‘classified information’

The Atlantic magazine has published fresh messages from a group chat including top US officials where they discuss operational details of plans to bomb Yemen.

The initial revelations by the magazine and its editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, who was accidentally added to the chat on the messaging app Signal, have sparked a huge outcry in the US, with the Trump administration facing withering attacks over the disastrous leak of sensitive information.

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China remains top military and cyber threat to US, intelligence report says

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Annual report says Beijing making ‘steady but uneven’ progress on capabilities to capture Taiwan

China remains the United States’ top military and cyber threat, according to a new report by US intelligence agencies that said Beijing was making “steady but uneven” progress on capabilities it could use to capture Taiwan.

China has the ability to hit the United States with conventional weapons, compromise US infrastructure through cyber-attacks, and target its assets in space, as well as seeking to displace the US as the top AI power by 2030, the Annual Threat Assessment by the intelligence community said.

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Schumer says cyber operations pause against Russia gives Putin ‘free pass’

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Top Democrat calls Trump’s move to retreat from fight against Russian cyber threats ‘a critical strategic mistake’

A senior US Democrat has hit out at Donald Trump’s attempt to reset relations with Russia following revelations that the president’s administration is retreating from the fight against Russian cyber threats, calling the reported move “a critical strategic mistake”.

In a statement on Sunday making reference to the Russian leader, New York’s Chuck Schumer – the US Senate’s Democratic minority leader – said Trump was “so desperate to earn the affection of a thug like Vladimir Putin he appears to be giving him a free pass as Russia continues to launch cyber operations and ransomware attacks against critical American infrastructure, threatening our economic and national security”.

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Trump administration retreats in fight against Russian cyber threats

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Recent incidents indicate US is no longer characterizing Russia as a cyber security threat, marking a radical departure: ‘Putin is on the inside now’

The Trump administration has publicly and privately signaled that it does not believe Russia represents a cyber threat against US national security or critical infrastructure, marking a radical departure from longstanding intelligence assessments.

The shift in policy could make the US vulnerable to hacking attacks by Russia, experts warned, and appeared to reflect the warming of relations between Donald Trump and Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.

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Ex-US defence chiefs urge congressional hearings on Trump’s military firings

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Trump’s first defence secretary James Mattis among five to express alarm at ‘reckless’ dismissals of top military figures

Five former US defence secretaries have demanded congressional hearings on Donald Trump’s firings of several military commanders, including the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, saying it was done for “purely partisan reasons” and weakens national security.

The five – including James Mattis, who served as defence secretary during Trump’s first presidency – wrote in a letter that they were “deeply alarmed” by the dismissals, which they said were “reckless” and unjustified by operational reason.

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Top Republican condemns Elon Musk for ‘supplication’ to China in new book

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Exclusive: Tom Cotton, Senate intelligence chair, risks angering key Trump ally with harsh words for ‘tech titans’

In a new book, the Arkansas senator Tom Cotton condemns Elon Musk for “chasing Chinese dollars” and having “shamefully supplicated China’s Communist rulers”, in order to advance his own interests as chief executive of companies including Tesla and SpaceX.

It’s an explosive charge from the Republican chair of the powerful Senate intelligence committee, given that Musk, the world’s richest person, is a major donor and close adviser to Donald Trump, now working at the heart of the president’s administration to slash costs and reshape the federal government.

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Tulsi Gabbard grilled on Snowden, Assad and Putin in tense Senate hearing

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Skeptical senators ruthlessly questioned Trump’s national intelligence director nominee ahead of confirmation vote

Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump’s nominee for national intelligence director, refused to call the whistleblower Edward Snowden a “traitor” but sought to rein in her unorthodox views on foreign dictators and opposition to electronic surveillance during a tense confirmation hearing that could sink her nomination to oversee the country’s sprawling intelligence community.

In a three-hour hearing before the Senate intelligence committee, Gabbard, a former congresswoman and member of the Hawaii army national guard, partially recanted her views that Russia was provoked into invading Ukraine, said she had “no love” for the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and denied meeting with Hezbollah representatives during a trip to Lebanon in 2017.

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Trump rally shooting: Biden says ‘there is no place in America for this kind of violence’; attendee who was killed is identified – latest updates

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Suspect, named as Thomas Matthew Crooks, also killed in shooting at Pennsylvania rally; former first lady echoes husband’s call for unity

Before Saturday’s attempt on Donald Trump’s life, there have been multiple assassinations of US presidents.

Abraham Lincoln was the first president to be assassinated, shot by John Wilkes Booth on 14 April 1865, as he and his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, attended a special performance of the comedy Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, the AP writes.

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Experts dismiss Kristi Noem’s ‘dubious’ claim to have met Kim Jong-un

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South Dakota governor says she met North Korean dictator in same book in which she describes killing her dog

The South Dakota governor, Republican vice-presidential hopeful and self-confessed dog-killer Kristi Noem’s bizarre claim in a new book to have met the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un has been dismissed by experts as “dubious” and not “conceivable”.

The Dakota Scout first reported Noem’s claim, which is in her forthcoming book, No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong With Politics and How We Move America Forward.

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FBI chief says Chinese hackers have infiltrated critical US infrastructure

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Volt Typhoon hacking campaign is waiting ‘for just the right moment to deal a devastating blow’, says Christopher Wray

Chinese government-linked hackers have burrowed into US critical infrastructure and are waiting “for just the right moment to deal a devastating blow”, the director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, has warned.

An ongoing Chinese hacking campaign known as Volt Typhoon has successfully gained access to numerous American companies in telecommunications, energy, water and other critical sectors, with 23 pipeline operators targeted, Wray said in a speech at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, on Thursday.

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Israeli delegation to visit Washington to discuss planned offensive on Rafah

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US says attack would be ‘mistake’ as Biden and Netanyahu talk by phone for first time in over a month

Israel will send a team of officials to Washington to discuss its planned offensive on Rafah, the White House has said, as the Biden administration insists that an attack would be a “mistake” and seeks to persuade Israel to allow in more aid in the face of an imminent famine in Gaza.

The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, announced the Israeli visit after a phone call on Monday between Joe Biden and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, focusing on the planned Rafah assault that Netanyahu has vowed to launch.

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