British PM Burnham duped by White House impostor

SaveSharefacebookxwhatsapp-strokecopylinkBritain's Prime Minister Andy Burnham, July 17, 2026 [Henry Nicholls/AP]Published On 17 Aug 202617 Aug 2026British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has reportedly exchanged messages with someone posing as a senior government official in the United States.The UK leader believed he was speaking to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles in a recent exchange of messages, the Politico news outlet reported on Monday. US authorities have warned in recent months about AI being used to impersonate senior government officials.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Trump’s Pentagon demands media agree not to reveal ‘unauthorised’ materiallist 2 of 3After OpenAI disclosure, Anthropic says Claude also hacked outside systemslist 3 of 3Saudi intelligence chief meets Iraqi PM, renews Riyadh visit invitationend of listAccording to the report, sources said that Burnham exchanged a “few messages” but that they were “of no significance”. The contents of the messages remain unclear.Burnham then reportedly became suspicious, cut off communications and informed the relevant authorities.A British government spokesperson refused to comment on the report, saying it is against policy to discuss “national security matters”.The British Embassy in the US was reportedly extremely concerned about the incident and decided to inform the White House, which has since confirmed that the “incident had nothing to do with the Chief of Staff’s devices being hacked”. Concern over communications security has risen during President Donald Trump’s second term.The FBI warned of “malicious actors” misusing AI to impersonate senior government officials as it launched an investigation last year, alongside the White House, into an imposter who posed as Wiles and contacted senior Republicans and business officials.Two months later, the State Department announced it was investigating an imposter who pretended to be Secretary of State Marco Rubio and contacted three foreign ministers.The Trump administration came under intense scrutiny in March last year after it emerged that a US journalist was added to a group chat on the Signal app in which top security officials were discussing military strikes on the Houthis in Yemen.A report published by the Pentagon in December concluded that Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth could have endangered US soldiers after sharing secret information in the chat.