Earlier this month National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz put together a chat group titled, "Houthi PC small group," on the encrypted, but commercial phone app, Signal. Commercial meaning Signal isn't some top secret CIA, or NSA hoo doo phone app. Anyone in the world can buy it and use it on their personal device. In addition, the encryption, while fine if you're a reporter talking to a source, or an adulterous spouse arraigning a hookup with his or her latest online hottie, it isn't really all that sophisticated. In short, it can be hacked by any number of young whizzes from Yemen, or Moscow, to Beijing.
When the chat group convened, it included Waltz, Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, VP J..D. Vance, Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, Joe Kent who is the nominee to lead the center for counterterrorism, Tulsi Gabbard Director of National Intelligence, CIA Director, John Ratcliffe, Susie Wiles, White House Chief of Staff, Deputy White House Chief of Staff, Stephen Miller, Steve Witkoff, Special Envoy to Ukraine, Dan Caldwell, DOD Liaison, Mike Needham, State Department official, Andy Baker, an aide to Vance, Dan Katz, Treasury Department official, and--oops--Jeffrey Goldberg, Editor in Chief of Atlantic Magazine.
The group was spread out all over the place. Gabbard was somewhere in Asia, or over Asia. Witkoff was in Moscow, presumably receiving instructions from Vlad Putin on how to get the Ukrainians to unconditionally surrender. The guy who was invited to the conversation by, "accident," Jeff Goldberg, was sitting in his car located in a Washington D.C. Safeway Grocery store parking lot.
What happened during the text conversation and what has happened since then has amounted to a fuck up so monumental it feels like a skit straight out of Saturday Night Live.
First, the CIA Director and everyone else was using a commercial app that just weeks before the CIA--you know--the agency Ratcliff runs, told everyone to avoid because it isn't secure. Second, during the chat, Pete Hegseth announced the weather over a terrorist target was good and that a mission would be launched to take him out. In the post Hegseth detailed exactly what type of aircraft and unmanned weapons would be used. This post came, 51 minutes before American pilots took off and two hours before the strike occurred. For whimsey's sake it also included emojis of an American flag, a fire, and a fist in a boxing glove. (Later all that whimsey caused a Congressman to ask if Hegseth was drunk when he sent the post.)
So, two hours before a U.S. military strike happened and American personnel were put in harm's way, the Secretary of Defense announced it on an unsecure app to a bunch of people which included one guy sitting in Moscow, perhaps the Kremlin itself, and another sitting in a Safeway parking lot. A little later Hegseth assured the group everything was going according to plan and gave them the time the bombs would begin to fall. Luckily for the group and especially the crews flying the mission, Jeffrey Goldberg was responsible enough to wait until the attack was over before publishing his story about the online get together. Not to mention that no one in Tehran, Yemen, or Moscow had been tapped into the conversation.
The reaction of Trump and his administration has run the gamut from, "There wasn't any top secret information discussed," (Hegseth) to, "We will not be lectured to by democrats on matters of national security, (Karoline Leavitt) to "This reporter is a sleaze and the Atlantic is a failing publication, " (predictably, Trump himself.) My personal favorite though are the excuses offered up by Tulsi Gabbard. According to the Director of National Intelligence she can't remember where she was exactly, or what was said during the meeting.
Well, that's certainly reassuring.
After Trump threw out the insults and everyone else claimed there weren't any secret, "war plans," discussed, Goldberg released screen shots he took of the text messages. The White House, now desperate, has seized on the difference between, "war plans," (The Atlantic's first headline) and "attack plans," (Its second). All through it, administration officials have been claiming, the focus should be on the attack's success, rather than the group chat about it and what, "might have happened.". For good measure they're now saying, Joe Biden never attacked the Houthis, although he did, and that shipping in the area is now safe from terrorist missiles, which remains unclear at the moment.
What we do know is if a security SNAFU this incredible had happened during either the Biden, or Obama administrations the republicans and their media outlets would be screaming for heads and impeachment. Their outrage that democrats are doing it now that they screwed the pooch falls directly under the heading, hypocrisy.
As of today, Marco Rubio is the only person involved who has admitted the Signal group chat was a stupid mistake. Walz hasn't gone that far, but has conceded it was his fault Goldberg was present, "by mistake." Rubio's honesty might have put him at risk, although the most obvious candidate for a sacking is Waltz. Right now, Trump has to be asking himself why his National Security Advisor had Jeffrey Goldberg's name and number on his contact list in the first place.
Actually, this sort of Keystone Kops nonsense shouldn't be surprising. After all, as one analyst put it yesterday, Donald Trump didn't hire any professionals on purpose. He doesn't want pros and experts around him this time. He only wants true loyalists.
Those loyalists got lucky this time around. Who knows what will happen next time. Maybe we should all sign up on Signal so we don't have to wait for Jeff Goldberg to tell us.
3-27-25
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