EXCLUSIVE: Democrats silent on Avril Haines’s Signalgate scandal

The loudest voices in the Democratic Party in condemning the Trump administration over so-called Signalgate, in which top national security staffers used Signal in advance of President Donald Trump’s successful air strikes against the Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists in Yemen have been strikingly silent in the wake of the Washington Reporter’s report that one of President Joe Biden’s top national security aides used Signal “all the time and on her personal phone.”

Sens. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.), Mark Warner (D., Va.), Chris Murphy (D., Ct.) and Tim Kaine (D., Va.), along with Reps. Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) and Jamie Raskin (D., Md.) have seized on Signalgate to thrust themselves into the media limelight, but none of these Democrats responded to requests for comment from the Reporter about allegations that Haines was a frequent Signal user herself when serving as Biden’s Director of National Intelligence (DNI).

“Wait, Dems being hypocritical? No way,” Alexa Henning, the deputy chief of staff for Tulsi Gabbard, Haines’s successor, noted.

Garrett Exner, a board member of Veterans on Duty, remarked that Haines, “one of the most unimpressive ‘experts’ of the Obama-Biden NatSec era, can now add prolific Signal user to her list of accomplishments.” Exner chronicled Haines’s career highlights, which include “dropp[ing] out of her PhD program to buy a bar, which became a book store,” “host[ing] erotic readings’ at her book store,” “over[seeing] CIA hacking of Senate staff laptops,” and telling “Congress there were no indications of a Taliban takeover of AFG prior to US withdrawal.”

While the Democrats’ anti-Signal voices fell silent in response to requests for the Reporter, Republicans in Congress were easy to leverage Haines’s hypocrisy in order to turn the page on Signalgate, which President Donald Trump himself has indicated he does not care about.

“Democrats look ridiculous exaggerating a liberal media hit piece after four years of blindly defending Joe Biden and his reckless administration,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), one of Congress’s top watchdogs of either party, told the Reporter. Issa noted that Haines’s own Signalgate is a sign of “Democrat hypocrisy.” The Judiciary Committee, which Issa sits on, almost immediately took note of Haines’s hypocrisy.

Other Republicans used the recent revelations to totally discredit the Democrats’ attacks on top Trump officials. “The revelation that Avril Haines routinely used Signal on her personal phone, as confirmed by career intelligence officials, exposes the Democrats’ selective indignation for what it is: a political charade,” Rep. Pat Harrigan (R., N.C.) told the Reporter. “This has been an encrypted, widely accepted tool, yet they’ve vilified others for its use while staying conspicuously silent now. Their hypocrisy speaks louder than their criticism ever did.”

Rep. Stephanie Bice (R., Okla.) suggested that Haines’s usage of Signal could potentially be a target of a Department of Defense watchdog investigation. “[I] wonder if they’re going to look into the last administration’s use of Signal, too,” she said.

Rep. Mark Alford (R., Mo.) had a quicker response than some: “The left's hypocrisy knows no bounds,” he said.