WASHINGTON, March 26. /TASS/. US presidential special envoy Steve Witkoff used only a secure communication channel during his contacts in Moscow, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on her X page, commenting on the Signal messenger scandal.
According to her, "Steve Witkoff was provided a secure line of communication by the US government, and it was the only phone he had in his possession while in Moscow." This is how Leavitt commented on the publication of The Wall Street Journal, in which the newspaper's editorial board admitted that Witkoff received messages in the Signal messenger during his trip to Russia. The envoy himself said on X that he was amazed after reading the WSJ article and assured that he never used personal communication devices during his trips to Moscow.
"If the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board cared about the truth, they could have reached out to our team for comment before running these lies," the spokeswoman pointed out. According to her, the article is an example of misinformation by the media "determined to knock Steve Witkoff."
Earlier, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russian President Vladimir Putin received Witkoff on March 13, through whom he passed information to his US counterpart Donald Trump. The topics of the conversation between Putin and Witkoff were not disclosed by the Kremlin spokesman. As Leavitt reported on March 12, the US president's special envoy traveled to Moscow to discuss the settlement of the conflict in Ukraine.
On March 24, The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg published an article in which he said he received a request to join Signal, an encrypted messaging app, from a "Mike Waltz" on March 11. He was then included in a group chat dubbed "Houthi PC small group" with what appeared to be other top administration officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard and others.
For several days, "a fascinating policy discussion" was conducted in the chat, the article said. According to the editor, on March 15, user "Pete Hegseth" posted a message that contained details of planned strikes against the Houthis, including targets, weapons, and the estimated time of the start of the strikes, which, according to Goldberg, coincided with the time of publication of the first messages about the bombing on social networks.
Trump said that the abovementioned group did not leak classified data. The US president said that he trusted all members of his national security team, including Waltz, despite the data leak scandal. Waltz, in turn, said he did not know why Goldberg was included in the closed group.