Security breach: The White House confirmed an extraordinary breach of security involving top government officials — including Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — who discussed plans for military strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen in a group chat on a commercial messaging app that inadvertently included the top editor of The Atlantic.
This is a scandal that has no precedent. So of course the mods try to delete it.
"I had very strong doubts that this text group was real, because I could not believe that the national-security leadership of the United States would communicate on Signal about imminent war plans. I also could not believe that the national security adviser to the president would be so reckless as to include the editor in chief of The Atlantic in such discussions with senior U.S. officials, up to and including the vice president.
It was the next morning, Saturday, March 15, when this story became truly bizarre.
At 11:44 a.m., the account labeled “Pete Hegseth” posted in Signal a “TEAM UPDATE.” I will not quote from this update, or from certain other subsequent texts. The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command’s area of responsibility. What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing...
The Signal chat group, I concluded, was almost certainly real. Having come to this realization, one that seemed nearly impossible only hours before, I removed myself from the Signal group, understanding that this would trigger an automatic notification to the group’s creator, “Michael Waltz,” that I had left. No one in the chat had seemed to notice that I was there. And I received no subsequent questions about why I left—or, more to the point, who I was...
I have never seen a breach quite like this. It is not uncommon for national-security officials to communicate on Signal. But the app is used primarily for meeting planning and other logistical matters—not for detailed and highly confidential discussions of a pending military action. And, of course, I’ve never heard of an instance in which a journalist has been invited to such a discussion.
Conceivably, Waltz, by coordinating a national-security-related action over Signal, may have violated several provisions of the Espionage Act, which governs the handling of “national defense” information, according to several national-security lawyers interviewed by my colleague Shane Harris for this story. Harris asked them to consider a hypothetical scenario in which a senior U.S. official creates a Signal thread for the express purpose of sharing information with Cabinet officials about an active military operation. He did not show them the actual Signal messages or tell them specifically what had occurred. All of these lawyers said that a U.S. official should not establish a Signal thread in the first place. Information about an active operation would presumably fit the law’s definition of “national defense” information. The Signal app is not approved by the government for sharing classified information. The government has its own systems for that purpose."
The Trump administration’s decision to invoke a provision in the 2015 council resolution allowing the “snapback” of sanctions because Iran was in “significant non-performance” with its obligations under the accord was ignored by the rest of the Security Council and the world.
The overwhelming majority of members in the 15-nation council called Trump’s action illegal, because the U.S. was no longer a member of the JCPOA.
A consistent theme from you is that you want the President to do what you want him to do without regard to the law.
“One obvious reason why Trump's advisers might choose to talk on Signal would be if they do not want their conversations permanently recorded and archived, as is required by federal law.”
This might be their practice ALL THE TIME.
Hillary used a private email server as secretary of state for this exact reason.
And you don't care... which is why no intelligent person cares about your fake outrage now.
But she was smart enough to not cc journalists with Top Secret info.
Security breach: The White House confirmed an extraordinary breach of security involving top government officials — including Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — who discussed plans for military strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen in a group chat on a commercial messaging app that inadvertently included the top editor of The Atlantic.
Gimme a well secured private server over this any day.
This is why you don't hire drunks. They always mess stuff up because they are distracted by their hedonistic impulses. I'm sure Hegseth felt terrible about it the next morning, but too freakin' bad. He can tell people how terribly sorry he is at his next AA meeting. We are talking about national security here and we don't need some boozehound running things.
I'm curious about the very root cause of the whole debacle - how did Jeffrey Goldberg's name get selected, presumably from a list of possible recipients in an address book? Did somebody add his name to the list of recipients in a case of mistaken identity, i.e. they got his name mixed up with some other guy with a generic Jewish-sounding name.? Is there some Trump official named Jonah Goldberg, or something similar, fuming right now because this never would have happened if that idiot had just gotten his name right?
But it's laughable for you idiots to act like this is unforgivable after the completely inept and destructive foreign policy of Biden and Obama.
Eddy, I really do appreciate a good laugh towards the end of the day!
I assumed that even the most ardent MAGA zealots couldn't possibly try to be a spin doctor regarding this blatantly amateurish mistake, but you still pulled through for us. Nicely done. 😂
But it's laughable for you idiots to act like this is unforgivable after the completely inept and destructive foreign policy of Biden and Obama.
Eddy, I really do appreciate a good laugh towards the end of the day!
I assumed that even the most ardent MAGA zealots couldn't possibly try to be a spin doctor regarding this blatantly amateurish mistake, but you still pulled through for us. Nicely done. 😂
My very first comment was that Waltz sh*t the bed and needed to resign.
It's still an undeniable fact that Biden and Obama's foreign policy was an absolute sh*t show.
They did dozens of things dumber than this.
The Houthis are literally only a significant presence in Yemen because of the incompetence of Obama and Biden on Iran.
This is why you don't hire drunks. They always mess stuff up because they are distracted by their hedonistic impulses. I'm sure Hegseth felt terrible about it the next morning, but too freakin' bad. He can tell people how terribly sorry he is at his next AA meeting. We are talking about national security here and we don't need some boozehound running things.
Hegseth had nothing to do with it you mindless fool.
It's still an undeniable fact that Biden and Obama's foreign policy was an absolute sh*t show. They did dozens of things dumber than this.
Once again, I am grateful for the top-tier entertainment!
Your subjective MAGA musings can't be labeled as an "undeniable fact"
No, they didn't
As I have said several times within the Second Term thread, the GOP nominated an extremely unqualified person to be their Secretary of Defense. This is the quality of work that you can expect to see, both now and in the future.
This is why you don't hire drunks. They always mess stuff up because they are distracted by their hedonistic impulses. I'm sure Hegseth felt terrible about it the next morning, but too freakin' bad. He can tell people how terribly sorry he is at his next AA meeting. We are talking about national security here and we don't need some boozehound running things.
Hegseth had nothing to do with it you mindless fool.
I'm looking at a chat group message with drunken Hegseth's name on it, you mindless fool. He was obviously half in the bag. You can't defend drunkards.
It's still an undeniable fact that Biden and Obama's foreign policy was an absolute sh*t show. They did dozens of things dumber than this.
Once again, I am grateful for the top-tier entertainment!
Your subjective MAGA musings can't be labeled as an "undeniable fact"
No, they didn't
As I have said several times within the Second Term thread, the GOP nominated an extremely unqualified person to be their Secretary of Defense. This is the quality of work that you can expect to see, both now and in the future.
Hegseth didn't invite the dude.
And Obama and Biden's foreign policy was absolutely idiotic.
Obama gave ISIS half the middle east. Obama toppled multiple governments including Libya which directly caused the immigration crisis in Europe.
Biden directly funded the 10/7 attacks by giving Iran hundreds of billions of dollars.
You are extremely unqualified to make any judgements on anything. You're hopelessly ignorant.
This is just the beginning. Trump will order a missile strike on Washington before the end of his term. But fortunately he will cc some journalist before he does.
The Trump administration’s decision to invoke a provision in the 2015 council resolution allowing the “snapback” of sanctions because Iran was in “significant non-performance” with its obligations under the accord was ignored by the rest of the Security Council and the world.
The overwhelming majority of members in the 15-nation council called Trump’s action illegal, because the U.S. was no longer a member of the JCPOA.
A consistent theme from you is that you want the President to do what you want him to do without regard to the law.
What authority do random countries have to declare anything the US does is "illegal"?
I'm curious about the very root cause of the whole debacle - how did Jeffrey Goldberg's name get selected, presumably from a list of possible recipients in an address book.
I was inadvertently included too in the list of the 18 chat group members! I totally freaked out when I understood this wasn’t a prank and speedily unfollowed.
My assumption is that the Trump administration wanted to share their plans with the NATO central command, and ended up including me by mistake because of my surname ("di Nato”). Something similar might have happened with the N. ATLANTIC T. O.
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