POTUS Donald Trump’s Peace Envoy Steve Witkoff denies having access to the now infamous Signal chat group created by Trump’s National Security Advisor Mike Waltz to discuss an attack on Yemen while on his trip to Moscow.
According to the Wall Street Journal and CBS News, 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.”
CBS News bases its claim on the analysis of open-source flight information and Russian media reporting has revealed, adding that Witkoff arrived in Moscow shortly after noon local time on 13 March, 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,” CBS News writes.
Witkoff has reacted to the reports, saying that he’s incredulous that such a report would appear in “a good newspaper” like the WSJ.
“I am incredulous that a good newspaper like the J would not check with me as to whether I had any personal devices with me on either of my trips to Moscow. If they had, they would have known the truth,” he said, adding that the government provided him with a secure phone for communication.
He added that he only got access to his personal devices upon his return home.
CBS News notes that it is unclear if a phone issued to Witkoff by the US government or a personal device was included in the Signal chat, “but US officials have been discouraged from using the messaging app on government devices, including by the Department of Defense.”
