When I read the astonishing news, the first thing that came to mind was a 1971 film titled “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.” There’s a reason I frequently refer to Trump’s idiot appointees as clowns or Keystone Cops.
But of course, it isn’t funny.
By now, you’ve undoubtedly read the media reports about a security breach so ludicrous that it could be the subject of a comic film: intelligence officers used a commercial messaging app (Signal) to discuss and coordinate a military strike against Houthi rebels. In the process, they accidentally included Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg in those discussions. (Initially, Goldberg– understandably– thought the messages were part of a hoax. Only after the strike occurred as discussed did he realize the texts he’d received were genuine.)
Robert Hubbell (and many others) noted that the recklessness wasn’t simply stupid; it was criminal. As Hubbell pointed out, a government employee of lower rank who committed the same offense would be behind bars “awaiting trial without the benefit of bail. See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 793(f) (“Whoever . . . .through gross negligence permits [national defense information] to be . . . delivered to anyone in violation of his trust” shall be fined or imprisoned for up to ten years.”
Huffpost quoted Mayor Pete’s reaction, including the expletive:
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is calling out President Donald Trump and his cabinet after an “epic fuckup” accidentally gave a journalist access to a group chat detailing a planned airstrike in Yemen.
“It is getting clearer by the day that the people in charge of the American government cannot keep the American people safe,” Buttigieg said in a video posted on social media.
In the New York Times, David French addressed the breach, saying that Hegseth should resign, having “blown his credibility as a military leader.”
I’m a former Army JAG officer (an Army lawyer). I’ve helped investigate numerous allegations of classified information spillages, and I’ve never even heard of anything this egregious — a secretary of defense intentionally using a civilian messaging app to share sensitive war plans without even apparently noticing a journalist was in the chat.
There is not an officer alive whose career would survive a security breach like that. It would normally result in instant consequences (relief from command, for example) followed by a comprehensive investigation and, potentially, criminal charges.
Federal law makes it a crime when a person — through gross negligence — removes information “relating to the national defense” from “its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted or destroyed.”
As French and several others have commented, the incident is an example of public officials using a commercial messaging app so that they could avoid accountability by circumventing the “security infrastructure that protects defense secrets and preserves the official records of communications and decision-making by senior government officers.”
The very use of the app broke several laws. French quotes one: Department of Defense Policy Regarding Use of Unclassified Mobile Applications. Paragraph 10 in Attachment Two of that document states:
Unmanaged ‘messaging apps,’ including any app with a chat feature, regardless of the primary function, are NOT authorized to access, transmit, process non-public DoD information. This includes but is not limited . . . iMessage, WhatsApps, [and] Signal.
The use of a commercial messaging app (presumably on personal cell phones!) endangered US national security. That, in itself, was an appalling and entirely illegal lapse. But as French goes on to argue, the reckless disclosure to Jeffrey Goldberg elevates the offense to a level requiring impeachment and removal from office.
And then, of course, there’s our Madman-in-Chief’s response to this gobsmacking breach of security:
One additional unsettling aspect of the affair is that Trump claimed to know nothing about the inadvertent disclosure to Jeffrey Goldberg—even after a representative of the National Security Advisor admitted that the texts received by Goldberg were authentic. Trump is either clueless, lying, or both. There is no combination of those possibilities that reflects favorably on Trump.
The cabinet officials recruited by Trump and obediently confirmed by Senate Republicans are an embarrassing collection of know-nothings, incompetents and conspiracy theorists, leavened with a sprinkling of Russian assets. (Designations that are not mutually exclusive…)
If we needed any additional proof that the administration’s anti-DEI, anti-“elitist,” anti-woke, anti-education assaults are efforts to ensure continuation of the historic dominance of mediocre (and worse) White men over more competent women and minorities–efforts to turn back the clock to a time before individual merit mattered more than a preferred gender or skin color– the pathetic performance of these individuals should be dispositive.
Am I the only one who now fears that throughout the ranks of the military there is great distrust of the Commander and Chief?
Lol, they’d be better off putting Doctor Strangelove in charge! All government vehicles are now going to be billboard trucks! They will communicate via binoculars and sign language on the highways. Now that’s a money saver we can all get behind! “Saul Goodman” School of spycraft!
I have a family member who is in a sandbox in the Middele East. Let hope and pray that none of our service members are harmed by this total screw-up by the incompetents. Mayor Pete used the correct words that I was thinking.
Theresa – No military expertise here, but imho, it seems to me the greater the lack of trust in the administration by the military, the better for us when you-know-who decides to declare martial law. There are daily protests now – somewhere, every day. How much longer do you think he’ll let that happen?
I too am appalled at this breach, and called all 3 Indiana reps before 8:30 yesterday. Can you imagine the outrage by Reps if the tables were turned? We’d never hear the end of it (Hillary’s emails, anyone?). We absolutely cannot let this story die – like every story does. If we do, we may as well just lie down and let him and his merry band of incompetent thieves and lackeys do whatever they want.
SCOTUS gave Trump immunity for his CRIMES before, during his first term and beyond and his CONVICTIONS before his second term began. The entire sitting Republican party, MAGAs and others, are upholding his continuing criminal and stupid words and actions which began decades before he considered the presidency. Like cockroaches when you turn on the light, they scatter when confronted with questions and demands from their constituents to speak out and take action to stop the deconstruction of American way of life protected by the Constitution.
“The cabinet officials recruited by Trump and obediently confirmed by Senate Republicans are an embarrassing collection of know-nothings, incompetents and conspiracy theorists, leavened with a sprinkling of Russian assets. (Designations that are not mutually exclusive…)”
We are now viewed as a Russian tentacle before the world; a far less intelligent and openly stupid tentacle to be sure. I must consider the intelligence of the Democratic candidates and organizations I sent hundreds of dollars of my Social Security money to who continue dunning me for donations when they know, better than I do, how precarious the income of SEVENTY MILLION SOCIAL SECURITY RECIPIENTS ARE IN. And Trump, Musk, et al, do not appear to be aware that those numbers include millions of Republican recipients. “Can’t get blood from a turnip.” This level of ignorance appears to be who and what we are placing our faith in for protection of our civil and human rights as well as securing our paid into income.
“Trump is either clueless, lying, or both. There is no combination of those possibilities that reflects favorably on Trump.” Best extract from this essay. The tragedy is: HE DOESN’T CARE. He thinks he is king and all-powerful. He will excuse these assholes because he simply cannot make a bad choice, right?
And now our Social Security benefits are at risk. Is everyone having fun yet?
I thought ‘Idiocracy’ was a comedy. Turns out it was a prophecy.
“Federal law? We don’t need no stinkin’ Federal law!”…GOP
BTW, wasn’t Clarence Thomas an original DEI appointee? Gotta love Republican hypocrisy. Corruption only applies to Democrats, right?
People who believe close all doors to knowing.
Knowing is hard, careful, detailed, critical thinking work which leaves comfort, confidence, and certainly behind to join the riskiness of questioning everything until repeated testing of all possible alternatives is complete.
Military ops are the rule not the exception in order to respect people in the field by keeping them as safe as possible given the inherent risk of assaulting well defended enemies.
Politics is based on what the consumers of government, those who reside within the borders of the country governed, need:
“to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.“
That requires certainty in operations not scatter-brained shots in the dark.
“Scatter like cockroaches…” A vivid image.
“Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and dispel all doubt.”
Trump digs himself and the presidency deeper into the mire with each speech he makes regarding what our Mayor Pete called a “fuck up”. Larry, Curley and Moe are dispensing their changing reasoning for our National Security being bared to the public by the media here and globally. We know our once strong allies no longer trust and support us but now our enemies have a strong reason for losing trust because the next “slip of the text” might bare their own classified information they entrusted to Donald Trump and Elon Musk…or what is in those boxes of classified documents Trump took home to Mar-A-Lago and which were recently returned by our FBI.
Theresa; can we really trust the recently replaced ranks of the leading military who are being replaced by Trump? There are also those members of military who were connected to January 6th insurrection (who have been pardoned); we can’t put our full trust in anyone at this time. We are all up our own individual “shit creeks with no paddles” at this time and nothing but rapids and waterfalls ahead of us.
Tulsi Gabbard didn’t look too hot during her congressional testimony yesterday. I am sure Trump and Speaker Johnson want to speed up the press cycle on this one, but there is more to come and much more below the surface than what was uncovered. Hegseth made a statement in the past several weeks about leaks within the DoD because the press was getting access to inside information.
Well, Mike Waltz, the National Security Adviser (hard to believe, but it’s true), is the one who invited Goldberg (the journalist) onto the group chat. I know how group chats generally work: They preload friends or people to whom you’ve sent messages recently.
According to Goldberg, he removed himself from the chat group once he realized this was an actual event, not a test or prank. Um, why would a journalist remove himself from a conversation about national security that had been leaked to him?
I don’t know a single independent journalist who would do that. They would remain on the chat, cut and paste everything, and include it in their article. Goldberg chose to remove himself. That makes no sense unless he received leaks from Waltz regularly and knew he was put in the group chat by mistake. He wouldn’t want to kill off an inside source, would he?
Let’s see who hones in on Waltz to know where this leads. I think he’s the inside leak and has been passing information to Goldberg from day one. If the connection between the source and me could be easily traced, we would use other journalists from different agencies. This is standard practice and happens all the time to protect sources.
As I’ve said numerous times, these are mental midgets. All of them, including Trump. His ego is too fragile so he surrounds himself with people much dumber than he is which scary funny.
This subject will stay in the news cycle just like the Venezuela “gang members” deported to El Salvador. Mike Johnson is claiming they can cut off funding to the federal courts. Is that a threat against the judges to back off? Will Boasberg drop the case against Trump’s administration?
Now we have an official on the edge Constitutional crisis…
The horror! The horror of it all! From the first time dumptrump rode the elevator down amongst his golden trappings, through the abhorrent grab ’em by the pussy, they love it episode, through all of the racist, misogynistic and otherwise cruel and pathetic outcomes of his warped, empty-soul activity, to this day, it never ends, just keeps getting worse, even when we think it cannot possibly do so. How the hell is this going to end? The clowns he nominated – and the invertebrate GOP Senate approved – are the lamest – and in the same breath the most dangerous – bunch of nincompoops ever assembled in a Presidential Cabinet. I guess we just shudder through each day, expecting more and more of the worst that surely follows. All I can hope is that us Dems rally powerfully enough in the midterms to snatch the congressional reins back, to put the brakes on whatever the maga universe thinks they can jam down our throats next. Meantime, the judicial branch is our only hope.
Im curious about what the synchronous spinning, right wing media are saying about this.
Vernon – Observations like that make DEI seem like it might be the evil that conservatives pretend it is…
Todd – I presume the person dropped out for the reason he stated. That he felt he had no business being in an inside the walls (theoretically) meeting where strategies/timing/weapon systems/targets/locations/etc. were being planned/decided – an actual high security, confidential (in theory) meeting. I wouldn’t think CtrlC CtrlV of the entire thing would be appropriate, given that he would be publishing attack plans. Seems like sharing an edited version with the public and a full version with a congressional investigation panel would be more appropriate in the pre-event world. Post event, I suppose you could publish to prove it was real – seeing as the administration’s policy is currently to call the journalist in question a liar.
I subscribed to The Atlantic today
I recommend using the 5Calls app to send your thoughts to your Senators and Representatives. I’ve been doing so and it feels good.
JoAnn, Putin isn’t stupid enough to give Orange Jesus any information, so you can take that worry off of your table.
Yesterday just happened to be the day the Senate Intelligence Committee was scheduled to meet with the security team. The Dem Senators were vocal, asked good questions and got responses that ranged from obfuscation to outright lies. The House Committee will meet with them today. Again the Dems will grill them and get the same responses.
When the objective is to weaken and kill the “Administrative State”, you don’t waste time doing anything the right way. If they can show that the government can’t be trusted, it makes it much easier to bring it down. That’s what they’re doing with Social Security.
It might be a clown car, but it’s headed in the direction the right wants it to go. If they can build up enough speed, they might be able to bring the whole thing down with just one crash.
“Trump is either clueless, lying, or both.” I vote for lying, it’s what he does with abominable regularity. Knew nothing about “Project 2025?” Right!!!!!!!! I’ve got a bridge….
His people do not even come up to the low bar of being amateurs. As is the case with he, himself.
Question: Should the name of the National Security Chat contact have been made public? Doesn’t that give hackers the target to seek?
In addition to violating national security laws and military regulations, Waltz and others violated federal records law by employing an app designed to destroy the record rather than preserve it in the National Archives. Perhaps it’s a small point, but while we’re toting up the law violations we shouldn’t overlook it…
Sheila … you nailed the argument. To quote Candidate Trump in 2016 during attack on Hillary (without evidence of malfaesence) for her use of unauthorized email channels during Benghazi incident: “Lock her up!”
Trump brings a profound sex change with a fully charged white male display of arrogant incompetence to his own public judgement of off-line, unauthorized online channels amidst an armed conflict; the same circumstance to which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was literally falsely skewed during Congressional Hearings on the Benghazi issue.
Donny Boy, you really have your panties wrapped around your ankles on this one and you are in the middle of a childish tantrum with Muskrat on other issues.
Donny Boy you try to keep your calm with a look on your face of a three year-old who can’t hold it in anymore while the rest of your appointed team is in a frustrated circle jerk with nowhere to hide.
BTW … Rep Jim Jordan (R) Ohio is the only current GOP member of Congress who served on the Benghazi panel. Perhaps his colleagues would consult how to proceed with stronger evidence on the current Secretary of State.
The tragedy of Tulsi Gabbard: I used to think she was a straight-talking, level-headed, and sincere Representative, working for the people of Hawaii and of the United States. After two tours of duty in the middle east (the first as enlisted and the second as an officer), she was not afraid to state her anti-war opinions, but she was kicked out of the Democratic Party because she didn’t kowtow to the “forever wars” mentality. That she went over to the Dark Side after Hillary excommunicated her was a great disappointment to me.
I can’t forgive Hillary for her role in Tulsi Gabbard’s transformation from an environmental activist to a Trumpist syncophant. Adam Kinzinger called her opportunistic, so maybe I was just a sucker for a pretty face and an alto voice, after all. Still disappointing, anyway.
Sharon: “I recommend using the 5Calls app to send your thoughts to your Senators and Representatives. I’ve been doing so and it feels good.”
Unless you live somewhere that is competitive, that and $5 will get you a latte and a honorary membership in Virtue Posters Anonymous.
yep, media clouded by toooo much.. but todays Guardian, about the signal mass coffee break chat. seems rubio and hangman of defense, have a beef with europe. and the conversation is above just whos gonna get bombed. rubio has a deep distrust of euros affairs and rubio seems to prefer the saudi investment or lifestyle of the mid ea$t. europe is dying as he puts it. and hangman seems to concur.security is a must have, and these clowns prefer whos gonna get what over what security doled out. obviously maybe im in the dark here, but somehow i find it nausiating that crap talk should be included between two were suppose to trust with world affairs and this shipping lane. Thanks to,the The Atlantic for passing on how inept these clowns are. sleep well tonite, maybe putin will try and sneek fake drone over Greenland while vance is visiting and then they both can text each other and enjoy some warmhearted jive about security.
When it comes to violating Federal Laws, Hillary was the amateur.
These clowns are worse than the gang who couldn’t shoot straight.
Do not let this issue die. I just got a message that the Atlantic has published transcripts of the chat to verify that they really were included and that what they said was true. The gun is still smoking!
Melinda,:
can i print that on a T shirt? Thanks
Read Paul Krugman today!!
Lester @ 10:16
Sorry, but even in the Reddest states, it’s important to let your elected officials know that all their constituents aren’t happy with their behaviors. The more calls they get, the more they get that message. No citizen should concede in advance.
CGH @ 10:57
Ditto!
Peggy; Putin was not the only world leader sharing information with Trump and previous presidents and administrations; they include allies and enemies. He hauled away what appeared to be thousands of documents, classified and unclassified which are property of the government, not any individual president with few personal exceptions. And the questionable “visitors” to Mar-A-Lago and Trump’s carefully chosen staff had access to those boxes filled with documents.
Can’t someone hide all of the Sharpies in the White House from that fool?
Sheila … thanks. Your post this morning spawned additional research and messages sent to N. C. Members of Congress earlier this morning. Anyone on this blog from Ohio should have already held Rep Jim Jordan’s feet to the fire when he served on the Benghazi Panel to attack Secretary of State Clinton with far less authenticated evidence.
Lock’um Up!
Lester. No one can do everything but every one can do something. I’m doing what I can.
Sheila. Thanks!
The former TV star who made his political reputation with the phrase “You’re Fired!” on fake employees, read from a cue card in front of the lights and cameras, seems to now be unable to use that same line with real-life employees who screwed up royally and well deserve the axe.
Why not? His base would love to hear it again…
Dirk,
Max Blumenthal wrote this article yesterday about the Atlantic journalist/editor Goldberg. He’s a pro-genocide Zionist being used by the halls of the inner sanctum. I expected he was the one being leaked information by Mike Waltz.
When he left the conversation, he tipped his hat. As Max said, the Atlantic was losing money monthly until Goldberg started getting access to inside information. This is the opposite of what happened to the AP. If you can be trusted to spin the conversation to make the insider’s policies look good, you will get fed (leaked) inside scoops.
The WaPo and NYT live off of their “inside scoops.” The State Dept and Intel use them all the time to help shape the message our government wants to convey, i.e., propaganda.
I guarantee there is more coming…
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/03/25/max-blumenthal-jeffrey-goldbergs-war-chat/
Todd,
(sarcasm) Great news source! (end sarcasm)
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/consortium-news/
Dirk, you missed my ironic point about labeling and categorizing people.
Sheila,
Please give me an example of an US House/Senate member who voted against their party’s position due to constituent phone calls and kept something important from becoming/or not becoming law…
Steve, it _is_ an important point. The clear banality of the app’s use indicates that the people involved routinely use the app, despite the fact that (1) it is illegal to do so for security reasons, and (2) it is illegal to do so for record keeping reasons. It was clearly normal procedure to break the laws in these ways. (I can’t help but imagine the reaction if a Democratic administration was to do this. Would the impeachment already have started?)
Lester, I’ve seen discussions with people who have interned for members, and they relate that calls coming in to the office have a big impact. The staff tracks the calls carefully. The idea is that if one person is fired up enough to call, it suggests there are many others out there feeling similarly. Thus, a large number of calls to the office can trigger some real panic and behavioural changes in the member.
And last thing, I find the tone of the text messages, and the use of the emojis especially, to be psychopathic. Are these kids discussing a school project or movie they’ve just seen? The people involved had zero feelings about the destruction–to people(!) and infrastructure–involved in the strikes. It was as though they were simply playing a video game. It made my skin crawl.
When were administration appointees allow time to serve a position with training wheels. Hedgseth never had the credentials to fill the position not to mention the other appointees.