A DHS staffer faces serious punishment for accidentally adding a reporter to a group email [View all]

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Source: NBC News

A DHS staffer faces serious punishment for accidentally adding a reporter to a group email

The episode, which hasn't been previously reported, raises questions about unequal punishment for inadvertent leakers in the Trump administration.

March 27, 2025, 4:00 PM EDT
By Julia Ainsley

A federal worker accidentally includes a journalist on a detailed message in advance of a government operation.

While that sounds like the case of The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief being added to a group Signal chat by Trump’s national security adviser Michael Waltz, in which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared detailed military attack plans in Yemen, it’s not.

It’s what happened to a longtime Department of Homeland Security employee who told colleagues she inadvertently sent unclassified details of an upcoming Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation to a journalist in late January, according to former ICE chief of staff Jason Houser, one former DHS official and one current DHS official. (The two officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they do not want to endanger their current or future career opportunities.)

But unlike Waltz and Hegseth, who both remain in their jobs, the career DHS employee was put on administrative leave and told late last week that the agency intends to revoke her security clearance, the officials said.

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Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/dhs-staffer-faces-serious-punishment-accidentally-adding-reporter-grou-rcna198233