Washington Wednesday: Security breach and deportation clash

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Wednesday, the 26th of March.

This is WORLD Radio and we’re so glad you’ve joined us today! Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

Time now for Washington Wednesday. Today, legal battles over deporting gang members in the United States illegally.

But first, more on that national security group chat. The inclusion of a journalist on the messaging app Signal raises serious national-security questions.

Here’s Washington Bureau reporter Carolina Lumetta.

CAROLINA LUMETTA: Raised voices and hot tempers dominated yesterday’s Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. Colorado Senator Michael Bennet grilled CIA Director John Ratcliffe and other Trump administration officials.

RATCLIFFE: I don’t know if you use Signal messaging app, Senator, but–

BENNET: I do. I do, not for classified information, not for targeting, not for anything remotely–

RATCLIFFE: Neither do I, senator. Neither do I.

BENNET: Well, that’s what your testimony is today!

RATCLIFFE: It absolutely is not, senator!

On Monday, news outlet The Atlantic dropped a bombshell report. According to editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, top level officials planned out strikes on the Houthis in Yemen over a group chat in Signal, an encrypted but open source messaging app. On March 13, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz accidentally added Goldberg to the group.

Here’s Goldberg on ABC News this week:

GOLDBERG: They're not just talking about, “hey, what time is it? what time should we get dinner tonight or when is that meeting tomorrow?” they're actually talking about substantive issues relating to kinetic action directed against America's enemies.

A National Security Council spokesman confirmed that the text chain was authentic. In addition to Waltz and Ratcliffe, it included 16 other high-ranking officials such as the secretaries of defense and state, the director of national intelligence, the White House chief of staff, and even Vice President J.D. Vance. Goldberg said while he was in the chat, he saw information on weapons systems, timings, and undercover CIA agents.

Here’s Senator Bennet again in yesterday’s hearing:

BENNET: This sloppiness, this incompetence, this disrespect for our intelligence agencies and the personnel who work for them is entirely unacceptable! It's an embarrassment! You need to do better!

Federal law states that classified information may only be shared over secure channels. National security officials have used Signal in the past. It has end-to-end encryption that keeps third parties from accessing chats. The Biden administration allowed staff to download Signal onto government phones but warned that they should not share classified information on it. National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard said the group chat users followed the law.

GABBARD: There was no classified material that was shared in that Signal chat.

WARNER: If there was no classified material, share it with the committee. You can't have it both ways.

But Gabbard would not discuss the content of the chat thread.

Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg did say Waltz, who invited him to the chat, set messages to disappear after a few weeks. If true, that could run afoul of federal record preservation laws, the same ones former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was accused of violating when she deleted emails from a private server.

For his part, Waltz said the Atlantic story distracts from U.S. efforts to stop terrorist attacks on global shipping near the Suez Canal.

WALTZ: So look, this journalist, Mr. President, uh, wants the world talking about more hoaxes uh and this kind of nonsense rather than the freedom uh that you're enabling, and a key part of our sovereignty is open sea lanes and knocking the crap out of terrorists…

So far, most Republican lawmakers who have commented on the matter say that adding the Atlantic editor to the chat was sloppy, but they are less concerned about the existence of the chat. Nevertheless, Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters that lawmakers will investigate what happened:

THUNE: Obviously, we’re getting to the bottom of what that whole text chain entailed… I suspect the Armed Services committee may want to have some folks testify and have some of those questions answered as well. I think everybody has acknowledged, including the White House, that yeah, mistakes were made. What we want to do is make sure something like that doesn’t happen again.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Carolina Lumetta in Washington.

EICHER: Turning now to deportations. The Trump administration used the Alien Enemies Act earlier this month to remove about 200 men that the White House says are members of a criminal gang. Tren de Aragua has roots in Venezuela, but the men in question were sent to El Salvador.

MAST: Earlier this week, a federal judge ordered the administration to stop using the Alien Enemies Act to deport anyone else, until the judge can decide if it’s legal.

WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has the story.

JOSH SCHUMACHER: The law invoked to deport gang members has a long history.

GEORGE FISHMAN: The Alien Enemies Act was enacted in 1798 when we feared an invasion by revolutionary France…

George Fishman is a Senior Legal Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies. He says that the Alien Enemies Act enjoyed widespread support when it was created in the 18th Century. And since then it’s also been upheld by the Supreme Court.

The law lets a president quickly detain and deport alien enemies when two requirements have been met: First, another country has declared war on the United States or is invading us. Fishman explains.

FISHMAN: It's always been used in the context of a declared war. This would be the first time it's being used outside of that context.

And second, that declared war or invasion has to be the act of a foreign government. The legal dispute surrounding Trump’s recent use of the act centers on that question.

FISHMAN: Can the acts of a foreign terrorist organization and international criminal cartel be attributed to a foreign government for purposes of triggering the Alien Enemies Act?

That question is up to the courts…but President Trump took steps on day one in office to designate the Tren de Aragua gang as a foreign terrorist organization. The group originated in Venezuela and is known for drug smuggling, human trafficking, and other crimes in the United States. Last week, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the administration’s actions to deport gang members.

LEAVITT: These are heinous monsters, rapists, murderers, kidnappers, sexual assaulters, predators who have no right to be in this country, and they must be held accountable.

George Fishman says the law might apply if the administration could prove that Venezuela had become what he calls a “mafia state.” That’s where the government is indistinguishable from a criminal organization.

FISHMAN: If the Trump administration can make the case in court that that the Venezuelan government is in fact a mafia state and and and this particular criminal terrorist organization essentially is acting at the behest of the Venezuelan government, then I think the Trump administration can make an excellent case that the alien enemies Act does apply.

Proving that detained individuals are active gang members could be more complicated. Jennifer Koh is a Professor at Pepperdine University. She questions the administration’s claim that all 200 alleged criminals deported were Tren de Aragua members.

JENNIFER JOH: The evidence that has been marshalled in support of that claim is very unclear. But it appears, for example, the government has relied on the existence of tattoos.”

Members of Tren de Aragua often have tattoos of stars, hourglasses, trains, eyes, and crowns. Those might seem innocuous to a casual observer, but they alert law enforcement at home and abroad to the gang member’s affiliations.

Chris Bendinelli runs a tattoo removal ministry in California. WORLD showed him some tattoos linked to Tren de Aragua. He says he’s removed dozens of them—from people who were once gang members but who now want to live a different life.

BENDENELLI: The very first photo has the hourglass... Basically they’re counting the days they get out of prison, that's why a lot of them get it. See that all-seeing eye? They both have it. I’ve removed all these. Not off of these people but I’ve seen these tattoos a million times.”

Bendinelli explains that just because someone has a gang-related tattoo doesn’t mean they’re still a gang member. But with immigration courts overwhelmed by nearly a million cases, verifying the status of a former gang member may not be a high priority for this administration.

BROTHERTON: They want to make good on their promise of deporting 13 million people, I think he estimated at one point.

David Brotherton is a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He explains that the Alien Enemies Act would allow the government to deport illegal immigrants en masse rather than push each individual through a months-long, case-by-case process in the immigration courts.

BROTHERTON: It can take anything from a month to six months to a year before you can process somebody out of the country. And they want to overcome that.

The legal questions about whether Tren de Aragua members are alien enemies and what the process should be for removing them are currently working their way through the court system. And some experts believe the question will ultimately end up before the nation’s high court.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher in Washington, D.C.

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