As top Trump aides sent texts on Signal, flight data show a member of the group chat was in Russia
Source: CBS News
Updated on: March 25, 2025 / 3:15 PM EDT
President Trump's Ukraine and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff was in Moscow, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, when he was included in a group chat with more than a dozen other top administration officials — and inadvertently, one journalist — on the messaging app Signal, a CBS News analysis of open-source flight information and Russian media reporting has revealed. Russia has repeatedly tried to compromise Signal, a popular commercial messaging platform that many were shocked to learn senior Trump administration officials had used to discuss sensitive military planning.
Witkoff arrived in Moscow shortly after noon local time on March 13, according to data from the flight tracking website FlightRadar24, and Russian state media broadcast video of his motorcade leaving Vnukovo International Airport shortly after. About 12 hours later, he was added to the "Houthi PC small group" chat on Signal, along with other top Trump administration officials, to discuss an imminent military operation against the Houthis in Yemen, according to The Atlantic magazine editor Jeffrey Goldberg, who was included on the chat for reasons that remain unclear.
U.S. lawmakers, both Democrats and Republicans, have questioned the use of the commercial communications platform for the conversation, which Goldberg revealed Monday in his own report for The Atlantic. The National Security Council told CBS News on Monday that the group chat "appears to be authentic."
Goldberg has not recounted Witkoff making any comments in the group chat until Saturday, after he left Russia and returned to the U.S., with a stop on Friday in Baku, Azerbaijan. It is unclear whether a phone issued to Witkoff by the U.S. government or a personal device was included in the Signal chat, or whether he had the device with him in Russia, but U.S. officials have been discouraged from using the messaging app on government devices, including by the Department of Defense.
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-envoy-steve-witkoff-signal-text-group-chat-russia-putin/
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