SignalGate: Did CIA Boss Ratcliffe Use a Cell Phone in Headquarters?

And why were these clowns texting secrets on Signal at all?

Patel and Gabbard doing their best to fend off tough questions Wednesday from determined Democrats at the House Intelligence Committee (AP)

William D. Murray, a storied former senior CIA operations official, keeps in touch with his old outfit, which has called him in from time to time over the many years since he’s been retired for a consult (although not recently). During a visit about a year or so ago, he recalled in a conversation with me today, he was passing through the security portal when a guard stopped him. The Fitbit on his wrist, he was told, had to go.

Right. It was a simple oversight. He knew the drill, which had been in place for decades: “Anything that emits or accepts electronic signals is forbidden inside the building,” he said. So he tramped back out to the parking lot and left it in his car. Anyone who’s ever visited the CIA, not to mention its employees, knows this.

So he had a simple question today: “Why is the director of the CIA using a cell phone at CIA headquarters?” And not just John Ratcliffe, he said. What about the DNI, Tulsi Gabbard? Or Pete Hegseth, or Mike Waltz—or any of the other officials in on the now infamous Signal chat about an impending air attack on the Iran-backed Houthis rebels in Yemen. “Everyone’s talking about Signal, but I haven’t seen anything about the phones themselves,” he said.

(The CIA public affairs office wasn’t anwering their phones this afternoon—or yesterday, either, for that matter.)