Signal War Plans Messages Disappear from CIA Director’s Phone
April 15, 2025
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Kate Plummer is a Newsweek reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is on U.S. politics and national affairs, and she is particularly interested in the impact of social policy decisions on people as well as the finances of political campaigns, corruption, foreign policy, democratic processes and more. Prior to joining Newsweek, she covered U.K. politics extensively. Kate joined Newsweek in 2023 from The Independent and has also been published in multiple publications including The Times and the Daily Mail. She has a B.A. in History from the University of Oxford and an M.A. in Magazine Journalism from City, University of London.
Languages: English.
You can get in touch with Kate by emailing k.plummer@newsweek.com, or by following her on X at @kateeplummer.
Kate Plummer
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Signal messages discussing sensitive U.S. military plans were not on CIA director John Ratcliffe’s phone when the CIA reviewed them, the CIA’s Chief Data Officer has said.
In a court document submitted as part of a lawsuit between nonpartisan watchdog group American Oversight and White House officials, Hurley V. Blankenship said that when the CIA reviewed a sensitive Signal group chat on March 31, days after news broke that a journalist had been erroneously added to it, “substantive messages” were not present and instead the chat showed only its group name and administrative settings.
Federal Judge James Boasberg, the chief U.S. district judge in Washington, on March 27 ordered Ratcliffe—along with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessen and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard—to preserve all messages from March 11 to 15 in the chat group.
John Ratcliffe, testifies before a Select Subcommittee hearing on the Coronavirus Pandemic investigation of the origins of COVID-19, Tuesday, April 18, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. John Ratcliffe, testifies before a Select Subcommittee hearing on the Coronavirus Pandemic investigation of the origins of COVID-19, Tuesday, April 18, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta
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