National Security Advisor Mike Waltz left his Venmo account wide open to the public until Wednesday afternoon, exposing hundreds of personal and professional contacts to potential exploitation.
A so-called “analysis” by the leftist tech outlet WIRED revealed that the account, listed under “Michael Waltz” with a profile photo of the man himself, connected to names tied to the Trump administration’s inner circle—names like Susie Wiles, White House chief of staff, and Walker Barrett, a National Security Council staffer.
The account exposed a 328-person network, including military officials, political strategists, prominent journalists, and even other members of the Trump administration’s inner circle.
After WIRED began digging, both Waltz and Trump campaign powerhouse Susie Wiles quickly made their Venmo accounts private.
According to the news outlet:
A WIRED review of public data exposed on Venmo accounts associated with senior administration officials suggests that the Signal group chat was not an isolated mistake, but part of a broader pattern of what national security experts describe as reckless behavior by some of the most powerful people in the US government.
The Venmo account under Waltz’s name includes a 328-person friend list. Among them are accounts sharing the names of people closely associated with Waltz, such as Barrett, formerly Waltz’s deputy chief of staff when Waltz was a member of the House of Representatives, and Micah Thomas Ketchel, former chief of staff to Waltz and currently a senior adviser to Waltz and President Donald Trump.
Other accounts carry the names of a wide range of media figures, from on-air personalities like Bret Baier and Brian Kilmeade of Fox News and Brianna Keilar and Kristen Holmes of CNN to a cable news producer, a prominent national security reporter, local news anchors, documentarians, and noted conspiracy theorist Ivan Raiklin, who calls himself the “the secretary of retribution” and once created a deep state target list. (Fox News declined to comment; CNN did not respond to a request for comment.)
Many of the accounts appear to belong to local and national politicians and political operatives ranging from US representative Dan Crenshaw of Texas to a former mayor of Deltona, Florida, as well as venture capitalists, defense industry entrepreneurs, and executives like Christian Brose, the president of defense tech giant Anduril. (Crenshaw’s office and Anduril did not respond to requests for comment.)
One of the most notable appears to belong to Wiles, one of Trump’s most trusted political advisers. That account’s 182-person friend list includes accounts sharing the names of influential figures like Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, and Hope Hicks, Trump’s former White House communications director.
While none of the Venmo transactions for the account listed for Waltz, Wiles, or Barrett were publicly visible, it appears that none of them had opted out of sharing their contact list, allowing their friend lists to remain visible to the public. After WIRED reached out to the White House for comment, both Waltz and Wiles appeared to change their Venmo privacy settings to hide their friend lists.
And if privacy was such a concern, where were the safeguards from the government itself? Shouldn’t a sitting national security adviser have received explicit instructions from federal cybersecurity experts on how to lock down their digital footprint?
When Joe Biden was found on Venmo in 2021, the media downplayed it. When Mike Waltz is found, it’s suddenly a five-alarm fire. Why the double standard?
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