Incompetent Trump Administration Shares Classified Info, War Plans with Civilian Journalist on Commercial App.
In another of a long line of acts that demonstrate the complete incompetence of the Trump administration and also illustrates how totally unqualified Trump’s entire cabinet is, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth openly discussed US war plans and shared classified information with a civilian journalist. Jeff Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic was included in a group chat on the commercial messaging app Signal. The group which also included Trump’s National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Vice President JD Vance. In this stunning breach of national security, the group discussed the planned attack on Houthi rebels in Yemen. According to Goldberg the discussion topics included times, targets, weapons systems, and operational security.
Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, stated that this event “represents one of the most egregious failures of operational security and common sense that I have ever seen”. However, Republican Mike Johnson, the current Speaker of the House, in a completely predictable move dismissed the idea of discipline of investigations of those involved.
This breach of national security was not only completely incompetent, it was also most definitely illegal. Classified information should never be shared outside of secure government channels. David French, a former military attorney wrote in a March 25th New York Times article, "I don't know how Pete Hegseth can look service members in the eye. He's just blown his credibility as a military leader," French wrote.
"This would be a stunning breach of security. 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," French wrote.
"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."
It is most likely that every government official in the group chat violated The Espionage Act. The New York Times also reported that “Several Defense Department officials expressed shock that Mr. Hegseth had put American war plans into a commercial chat group. They said that having this type of conversation in a Signal chat group itself could be a violation of the Espionage Act, a law covering the handling of sensitive information.
Revealing operational war plans before planned strikes could also put American troops directly into harm’s way, the officials said. And former F.B.I. officials who worked on leak cases described this as a devastating breach of national security. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive national security matter.
Former national security officials said that if personal cellphones were used in the group chat, the behavior would be even more egregious because of ongoing Chinese hacking efforts.”
The actions of Secretary Hegseth and the other government officials in the chat group could also have violated The Records Acts, which include the Federal Records Act, Presidential Records Act, and United States Records Act. All of these acts deal with how records are created and stored and since the app Signal automatically deletes chats after one week these communications between government officials, including the Vice President, should never be deleted.
As a surprise to no one Republicans are trying to downplay the incident, which is rich coming from a group that cried, whined and complained about Hillary Clinton’s private email server for over a decade. Hegseth’s actions could have had much more severe consequences than Clinton’s and also could have potentially put the lives of American soldiers at risk.
Overall, this incident reveals the hypocrisy of the Republican Party and demonstrates just how incompetent and unqualified Trump’s entire cabinet is, not to mention the complete lack of judgement demonstrated by the entire group.
