Reporters say how they found private contact information of top Trump officials

Reporters are claiming to have found private contact information online for top Trump administration officials at the center of a Signal text chain leak disclosing U.S. plans to attack Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

Germany’s Der Spiegel said national security advisor Mike Waltz, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth are among those affected.

The outlet reported that phone numbers, email addresses and even some passwords belonging to the officials were found on the internet by its staff after they “used commercial people search engines along with hacked customer data that has been published on the web.”

“Most of these numbers and email addresses are apparently still in use, with some of them linked to profiles on social media platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn. They were used to create Dropbox accounts and profiles in apps that track running data,” Der Spiegel reported. “There are also WhatsApp profiles for the respective phone numbers and even Signal accounts in some cases.”