It’s hard to have a conversation with anyone in Washington these days without using Signal. I hate the app. It’s just one more messaging app that must be checked. Everyone in Washington, it seems, has Signal. Government officials use it. Reporters use it. Politicians on Capitol Hill use it. Hillary Clinton used an insecure email server. Everyone else just uses Signal, which, at least, is end-to-end encrypted.

With China thoroughly infiltrating our telecom system, no officials in DC are using built in phone messaging apps or voice to communicate important information now. Apple’s iMessage is robust and secure if the bubbles are blue. But someone may have their iCloud backup turned on, which would capture the chat. What’s App is fine and secure. But, again, someone might have a backup. Signal is secure and once a message is deleted, it is deleted. It is the preferred app.

For members of the Trump Administration, which last term saw rogue embedded progressives leaking classified information and even now has seen ICE raid information leak, bypassing government approved means of communications for Signal makes sense — the rogue bureaucrats provided the incentive.

But that is no excuse to add a reporter to a secure group chat trading information related to bombing the Houthis as the Trump national security team did. //

• This whole mess really does suggest that the Trump Administration, like the Biden Administration, has no clue how to get the Chinese out of our telecom networks.