Laura Loomer’s X posts don’t prove that national security official added journalist to Signal chat

Conservative activist Laura Loomer targeted a deputy national security adviser and questioned whether he is to blame for the Trump administration including a journalist in a Signal group text about bombing Yemen. 

In the March 26 X post about the incident, when officials were texting operational details about the bombing without realizing a journalist had accidentally been added to the chat, Loomer listed seemingly unrelated details about Alex Wong, such as where his wife works and his previous employer. 

"Why do we have a CHINESE Deputy National Security advisor who is married to a CHINESE US ATTORNEY who worked under Obama and Biden, and who helped prosecute (Jan. 6 defendants) after the stolen 2020 election?" Loomer wrote.

"Given the Chinese connections, it really makes you wonder" whether adding The Atlantic journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to the text chat was "part of a foreign opp to embarrass the Trump administration on behalf of China," she wrote.

Loomer’s original post and subsequent ones included no evidence of wrongdoing by Wong. But she laid the groundwork for a baseless theory that quickly spread on social media. 

"Well Well Well look who it is: Alex Wong is the individual who added Jeffrey Goldberg to the Signal chat," read a March 27 Facebook post that included a photo of Wong. It cited Loomer and quoted her X post verbatim. 

Another March 27 post echoed the claim that Wong added Goldberg to the Signal chat, also citing Loomer. 

These posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

(Screenshot from Facebook)

In her X thread, Loomer repeatedly provided what she called "receipts." But those screenshots didn’t support the Facebook posts’ claims about Wong.

Loomer’s "receipts" provided as evidence for her claim included Wong’s wedding photos and details about his and his wife’s previous work for U.S. law firms and the U.S. government. 

None of it is proof that Wong added Goldberg to the Signal chat. National Security Adviser Michael Waltz said publicly he was responsible for Goldberg erroneously being added to group text.

Loomer’s claims on X

In her post, Loomer focused on Wong’s wife, a lawyer who worked as an assistant United States attorney during the Obama and Biden administrations and the first Trump administration. 

Loomer repeatedly described Wong and his wife as Chinese. We searched news stories and public records and found no examples where Alex Wong publicly identified his race or heritage.

Tagging senior FBI officials Kash Patel and Dan Bongino on X, Loomer said Wong should be removed from his position and investigated by the FBI.

In a subsequent March 26 X post, Loomer wrote that when Trump was asked how Goldberg was added to the Signal chat, he said Waltz’s "staffer" had Goldberg’s phone number. 

"That appears to be a reference to @MikeWaltz47’s Deputy National Security Advisor, Alex Wong," Loomer said, including an article screenshot that said Wong was the staff member Waltz had tapped to lead the team monitoring the U.S. attacks in Yemen. The article Loomer screenshotted said, "It was not clear if Waltz himself, or a staffer managing Waltz's Signal account, sent Goldberg the invitation." 

Loomer shared Wong’s wedding photos and screenshots of articles about his wedding and screenshots that mentioned Wong’s wife’s work. One screenshot showed Wong previously worked at the law firm Covington & Burling LLP, which Trump has targeted. In another lengthy post, Loomer focused on Wong’s work on Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. 

We contacted Loomer and received no response. 

The New York Times reported April 3 that Loomer visited Trump at the White House, seeking to convince him to fire National Security Council employees who she said were insufficiently loyal. Six people were fired after the meeting, according to the Times, although Wong was not among them. 

Waltz took responsibility for adding Goldberg to the chat

The Atlantic’s reports, which included screenshots of the Signal chat, show that a person with the user name "Michael Waltz" added Goldberg to the group chat. A National Security Council spokesperson told The Atlantic that what Goldberg was sent "appears to be an authentic message chain." 

On "The Ingraham Angle" on March 25, Waltz said he didn’t text Goldberg or have his contact information. Fox News host Laura Ingraham asked, "So you don’t know what staffer was responsible for this?"

Waltz responded: "Well, look, a staffer wasn’t responsible. Look. I take full responsibility. I built the group. My job is to make sure everything is coordinated."

Throughout the interview, Waltz maintained that he created the group and erroneously added Goldberg, whom he believed was someone else, to the Signal chat. "I take responsibility. I built the group," he said.

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Ingraham: "I mean, I don’t mean to be pedantic here, but how did the number get in the chat?"

Waltz: "Have you ever had somebody’s contact that shows their name, and then you have somebody else’s number there?" 

Ingraham, joking: "Oh, I never make those mistakes."

Waltz: "You’ve got somebody else’s number on someone else’s contact, so of course I didn’t see this loser in the group. It looked like someone else. Now, whether he did it deliberately or it happened in some other technical mean is something we’re trying to figure out. 

Ingraham: "So, a staffer did not put his contact information — "

Waltz: "Of course not. No, no, no, of course not — " 

Ingraham: "But how did it end up in your phone?"

Waltz: "Well, that’s what we’re trying to figure out."

Ingraham: "OK. But that’s a pretty big problem — if there are numbers — "

Waltz: "That’s what we’ve got the best technical minds, right?"

Our ruling

Facebook posts said Loomer’s reporting proves that Wong "is the individual who added Jeffrey Goldberg to the Signal chat." 

Loomer’s "receipts" included Wong’s wedding photos and details about Wong and his wife’s previous employment with U.S. law firms and the U.S. government. None of the information proved that Wong added Goldberg to the Signal chat. 

Screenshots of the Signal messages show Waltz added Goldberg to the group chat. Waltz said publicly he was responsible for creating the group chat.

We rate these posts False.

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

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