Bondi signals probe into Signal chat is unlikely, despite a long history of similar inquiries
Source: Associated Press
Bondi signals probe into Signal chat is unlikely, despite a long history of similar inquiries
By ERIC TUCKER
Updated 12:52 PM EDT, March 27, 2025
WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI Director Kash Patel was not part of a Signal chat in which other Trump administration national security officials discussed detailed attack plans, but that didn’t spare him from being questioned by lawmakers this week about whether the nation’s premier law enforcement agency would investigate.
Patel made no such commitments during the course of two days of Senate and House hearings, declining to comment on the possibility and testifying that he had not personally reviewed the text messages that were inadvertently shared with the editor-in-chief for The Atlantic who was mistakenly included on an unclassified Signal chat.
That Patel would be grilled on what the FBI might do was hardly surprising.
Even as President Donald Trump insisted “it’s not really an FBI thing,” the reality is that the FBI and Justice Department for decades have been responsible for enforcing Espionage Act statutes governing the mishandling — whether intentional or negligent — of national defense information like the kind shared on Signal, a publicly available app that provides encrypted communications but is not approved for classified information.
The Justice Department has broad discretion to open an investigation ...
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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/fbi-pentagon-attack-plans-petraeus-clinton-comey-3ab3773b2642abaf024d3a5f3eb66f4b