Signal, Noise, and the Truth About Alex Wong

There is a difference between inference and evidence. Between suspicion and substance. Between journalism and rumor-mongering. In the case of Alex Wong, the recently appointed Deputy National Security Advisor in President Trump’s second administration, this distinction is not merely academic—it is reputational. Recently, a rogue claim surfaced that Wong had inserted the phone number of The Atlantic's editor into a sensitive Signal group chat involving discussions of a potential U.S. military strike in Yemen. This, we are told, was no mistake but an act of sabotage. The theory? That Wong, an ethnic Chinese-American, was secretly subverting American policy from within. The evidence? None.

This is a remarkable claim. It requires extraordinary proof. And yet, none has been offered. Indeed, the accusation is a paradigm case of speculative defamation: a claim without basis, advanced with insinuation and amplified by ethnic prejudice. The charge deserves not only dismissal but full-throated rebuttal.

Let us first consider the facts. The journalists who are floating the allegation (I will abstain from naming them to avoid dignifying the claim with false equivalence) speculated that Wong had personally "planted" the number of The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg in a confidential Signal group chat used by senior Trump officials, thereby compromising discussions about a military operation. No digital forensics were offered. No testimony from insiders. No leaked screenshots. Not even anonymous sourcing. Just a wild claim, issued into the ether, and lapped up by those hungry for scandal.

The only two individuals who could plausibly speak to the integrity of the chat setup are Wong and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz. Waltz, a former Green Beret and congressman, swiftly took responsibility for the mishap, calling it an unintentional error during the rushed setup of a new communications group. The addition of Goldberg was, in his words, a "mistake." Wong, for his part, has maintained professional silence. His discretion has been interpreted by some as guilt. This is illogical. When an employer admits error and the supposed culprit refrains from public sparring, that ought to close the matter. Instead, conspiracy theories have metastasized.

But why Wong? Why this particular man, among dozens involved in national security operations? The answer appears to lie not in what Wong has done, but in who he is. Specifically, in the heritage he carries.

Born in New York to Chinese immigrants who fled communism, Wong is a product of the American meritocracy. His parents, Grace and Robert Wong, were among the thousands who left Hong Kong in the waning days of British rule, uneasy with the prospect of Chinese Communist Party dominance after the 1997 handover. Both were deeply skeptical of the CCP, having witnessed from afar the slow strangulation of freedom across the mainland. They came to America in the late 1970s seeking stability, liberty, and opportunity.

Robert found work as a freight logistics manager at a U.S.-based consolidator, while Grace became a real estate agent in northern New Jersey. They settled in Bergen County, where they raised Alex with a clear message: freedom is fragile and precious, and America is the last best hope of preserving it. Their son would take that lesson to heart.

Equally telling is the background of his wife, Candice Chiu Wong. Her parents, Meiling Fang and Ya-Hui Chiu, were also from Hong Kong, where her father worked for over two decades in satellite operations at AsiaSat (owned by a US private equity firm), and her mother served as a hospital dietitian. Like the Wongs, they left Hong Kong amid growing unease about Beijing’s influence and its encroaching grip on civil liberties. They too were no fans of the CCP. Eventually, they resettled in Ridgewood, New Jersey, proud immigrants who embraced their adopted country and the constitutional order it offered their daughter.

Wong graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in literature and French, then earned his law degree from Harvard, where he served as Managing Editor of the Harvard Law Review. He clerked for Judge Janice Rogers Brown, a legal icon of the conservative movement, and later advised Mitt Romney on foreign policy. As a senior advisor to Senator Tom Cotton and later as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for North Korea in the first Trump administration, Wong crafted some of the toughest, most clear-eyed policies against Chinese expansionism and North Korean belligerence.

This record undermines the innuendo. It is difficult—no, impossible—to square the portrait of Wong as a Chinese asset with his professional history. He was, by all accounts, one of the most hawkish voices on China in Washington. He helped formulate the Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy, pressed for maximum pressure sanctions against Pyongyang, and was instrumental in organizing the Trump-Kim summits. His subsequent appointment to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission during the Biden administration only reinforced the bipartisan respect he commanded.

Also a Harvard graduate, Candice clerked for Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Judge Brett Kavanaugh on the D.C. Circuit. She served for nearly a decade as a federal prosecutor, leading efforts against human trafficking and violent crime. Her lone involvement in a January 6 prosecution? A violent rioter who confronted police and endangered lives—not a peaceful protester swept up in bureaucratic zealotry. In 2022, she was nominated to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, earning confirmation with bipartisan support.

In other words, this is not a household conspiring against the Republic. It is a household in service to it.

The claim against Wong fails every test: factual, logical, moral. Factually, there is no evidence. Logically, it collapses under its own weight. Why would a seasoned lawyer and national security expert torpedo his own reputation in a manner that would so obviously implicate himself? Why would he, of all people, expose sensitive discussions to a hostile media outlet when the most plausible explanation—technological error—has already been admitted? Morally, the claim reeks of racialized suspicion: a post hoc narrative driven not by conduct but by bloodline.

The McCarthy era had its lists. Today we have X threads. In both cases, innuendo replaces investigation, and ethnicity becomes a proxy for disloyalty. This is not conservatism. It is a perversion of it. Conservatives, above all, should resist the urge to indulge in character assassination absent proof. We are the heirs of Burke, not the Jacobins. We believe in ordered liberty, not mob rule. The rush to malign Alex Wong with baseless conspiracy is not only unjust—it is un-American.

That Wong has borne this with dignified silence is a testament to his character. But silence cannot be the only defense. His record, his background, and his integrity demand public vindication. The people who slander him do so not because of what he has done, but because of what he looks like. That is the definition of bigotry.

In sum: the Signal Chat theory is implausible. It is unproven. It is racially charged. It is defamatory. And it is wrong. Alex Wong is not the story here. The story is how easily a lie can catch fire when facts are treated as optional and prejudice is treated as proof.

We are not required to believe every accusation. We are required to examine it. On that examination, the case against Wong collapses. Let it fall—and let us, at last, turn our scrutiny on those who peddle poison under the guise of patriotism.

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