Castro Presses Trump Administration Over 'Signalgate'

Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro (D) confronted the Trump administration this week over “Signalgate,” a controversy surrounding Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s alleged sharing of military plans in an unclassified Signal chat. During a congressional hearing held this week, Rep. Castro pressed NSA Director General Timothy D. Haugh on whether such communications would typically be considered classified.

Rep. Castro criticized the administration’s claims that the leaked information was not sensitive.

“The idea that this information—if it was presented to our committee—would not be classified, y’all know it was a lie. That’s ridiculous,” the Texas lawmaker said. “I’ve seen things much less sensitive be presented to us with high classification, and to say that it isn’t is a lie to the country.”

Focusing his attention to General Haugh, Rep. Castro questioned whether the NSA would classify intercepted communications of foreign military officials discussing similar matters. General Haugh confirmed that classification would depend on how the information was obtained. “We would be classifying based off of our sources and methods,” the general explained.

Rep. Castro pushed further, questioning, “So, if you knew that the Secretary of Defense and the National Security Advisor of Russia or China and the head of the Foreign Ministry and all of the folks who are associated with that Signal chain, if you intercepted that information, General, would you consider it classified?”

 “It would be classified based off of our collection,” General Haugh responded.

Rep. Castro then sought further clarification, asking, if “the NSA would classify it or determine it as ‘classified’?”

“The protection of our own source and method, not necessarily based off the content but how we collected that information,” General Haugh elaborated.

Though General Haugh maintained that the NSA does not collect on U.S. persons, Rep. Castro’s questioning reinforced that such communications should have been handled with greater security.