With Trump officials, the President, his paid liar Karoline Leavitt stating, and both John Ratcliffe and Tulsi Gabbard swearing under oath that top US officials discussing operational details of plans to bomb Yemen before the operation miraculously did not contain any, classified information, The Atlantic today released much of the transcript as collected by editor Jeffrey Goldberg in a new article. I haven’t read the whole thing because I will not give a cent to The Atlantic, now one of the most notorious Axis allies. But the excerpts I have read elsewhere are hardly the discussions of favorite recipes for guacamole.
The Guardian, another hack Axis member, calls the texts “disastrous leak of sensitive information.” Fake news, via deceit. Because of dumb luck, the sloppy and unforgivable way an approaching attack was discussed had no “disastrous” effects except for the degree to which it showed incompetence and recklessness by Trump’s national security leaders, and the fact that the reaction of the Administration, including the President, has been to emulate the Democrats’ “It isn’t what it is” playbook should set off ethics alarms coast to coast.
Trump administration officials have said and keep saying that none of the information on the Signal chat chain was “classified information.” The Atlantic thinks it is, or if not, should be. “There is a clear public interest in disclosing the sort of information that Trump advisers included in nonsecure communications channels, especially because senior administration figures are attempting to downplay the significance of the messages that were shared,” the magazine said, and added, “If this text had been received by someone hostile to American interests – or someone merely indiscreet, and with access to social media – the Houthis would have had time to prepare for what was meant to be a surprise attack on their strongholds. The consequences for American pilots could have been catastrophic.”
The details of US bombings, drone launches and targeting information of the assault, and descriptions of weather conditions I have seen sure look to me like they should be “secret,” but what do I know? The Atlantic quoted an email from P.L. Leavitt which said: “As we have repeatedly stated, there was no classified information transmitted in the group chat. However, as the CIA Director and National Security Advisor have both expressed today, that does not mean we encourage the release of the conversation.”
Come on.
Democrats are expected to ask in today’s hearing how operational attack plans are not classified information in the Trump Administration, or, in the alternative, why Ratcliffe and Gabbard lied to Congress.
To be fair, I should note that President Trump had already provided ample evidence prior to the election that he doesn’t know what classified information is.
Ethics Alarms 
Agree completely. I have read the entire text chain. There is no advance mention of where or who the targets are! Does this make it unclassified? No, and I know quite a bit about classification rules. But it does render it a little less dangerous than if the targets had been identified. The only target identification is after the strike was successful. I am surprised this has not been a line of defense….although not one I would buy.
UPDATE: after about an hour of intelligence hearing this morning, Rep Scott (R-GA) finally asked: was the target identified by name? A: no, identified as “terrorist target”. Was the location identified? A: no.
So, this line that I expected has finally been opened.
In a live chat! That’s pure luck. “Oops! Sorry!” happens, and that’s why platforms have to be secure.
Did you receive my response to this? Not clear.
There is a letter-of-the-law vs. spirit-of-the-law dilemma in place here, and of course our many lawyers here know that it’s the letter-of-the-law that pretty much always wins out in court.
What I mean is that their claim that the attack plans were not classified could be technically true, but only in the sense that no one had ever positively marked the information as classified.
This is, of course, a loophole and not an actual justification. By any reasonable evaluation, military plans like this, when the disclosure could lead to “damage” to the U.S. Government (i.e. pilots getting shot down, soldiers killed), meet the definition for being classified SECRET.
For reference: (This is from memory so the actual wording may be different.)
CONFIDENTIAL – disclosure could lead to embarrassment of the US
SECRET – disclosure could lead to damage to the US
TOP SECRET – disclosure could lead to the US being destroyed
If ever there was a case of “When Ethics fails, the law steps in.” it’s this right here. I hope we eventually see (but really . . . probably not under this administration) some reform that positively designates certain categories of information as classified from its creation — or proper enforcement of such rules if they already exist.
–Dwayne
Bingo! Thank-you.
On the “something fishy’s going on here” front, Ann Althouse appears to be of the opinion that Goldberg was included on the chat in order to entrap him and make him guilty of some unspecified crime. She makes a lot out of Goldberg purporting to have spent a lot of time talking to lawyers about whether to sign off and otherwise how to treat the situation in real time and going forward. I don’t know what to make of this theory.
Seems unpatriotic for Goldberg to not have simply handled this in house, confidentially, instead of taking the embarrassment route.
“… in house”? Do you mean that Goldberg should have acted as a member of the administration and concealed from the public the high-level gross incompetence he observed? Perhaps in another country, such as Russia. To do that in America would be both unpatriotic and journalistic malpractice. And, it was not an embarrassment route; it was part of a vital function in a democracy; an informed public is an essential part of ‘consent of the governed’.
HeyJohnny,
We don’t know the truth of the situation, only what’s been reported so far. We should all know by now how initial reporting ends up later being inaccurate or at least not the entire story.
Let’s assume for a moment that Goldberg’s reporting is flawless; please explain how his promulgating this specific event “was part of a vital function in a democracy; an informed public is an essential part of ‘consent of the governed’”
Are you not even just a little bit troubled that Goldberg’s reporting provided (possibly valuable) information to the now better informed public of our enemies who quite literally want to destroy us?
It certainly is true that much further investigation is needed. Perhaps we will learn that others (Russia? Iran?) monitored the security breach but kept quiet about it to not reveal their intel capabilities.
Goldberg’s initial report did not provide tactical information useful to the Houthis. After he was wrongly attacked by the Administration, and well after the Houthis knew what the plan was, having felt the brunt of it, Goldberg released more of the chat to establish his credibility.
If his reporting helps lead the incompetent fools in the Administration to clean up their act, he will have done us all a service.
Notice how the legacy media outlets have seized on this nothingburger (like a dog with a bone) to hurt the Trump administration. How does this compare to these same traitorous hack’s coverage of Bidens extremely costly withdrawal from Afghanistan where not a single “incompetent fool” was fired?
To quote our host: Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias. This is a perfect example of how public opinion is purposefully influenced/shaped.
Why the Left and Media are Missing the Point with Their “Signalgate” Spin, with Ruthless Hosts
As disastrous as the Afghanistan withdrawal was, neither whatabouts nor links to videos of biased talking heads do anything for me.
Here’s Johnny says: “Goldberg’s initial report did not provide tactical information useful to the Houthis.”
Goldberg’s irresponsible self-serving reporting provided communication methodology and insight into our players thinking and perspectives. Plus, no doubt the enemy hackers are taking a fresh look at ways to infiltrate our communication. Bottom line is that his promulgating only hurt us and helped the radical Islamic barbarians, and himself of course.
Johnny also says: “Goldberg released more of the chat to establish his credibility.”
You actually believe that? All his extended release does is establish he was there and can replicate what he heard – BFD! Any intelligent ninth grader can do that.
Johnny goes on to say: “If his reporting helps lead the incompetent fools in the Administration to clean up their act, he will have done us all a service.”
Embarrassing those involved in the chat probable does increase the motivation to establish more secure communication. However, the cost/benefit analysis favors Goldberg internally lighting that fire unless of course he’s a phony traitorous hack.
Have a nice day and keep the faith…🤠
If the president was serious about MAGA-ing the nation, a healthy dose of accountability here would have set a fresh tone. it would have set his administration apart and cemented his apparent stance that business in the US government, whether by employees or those elected and/or appointed, was no longer business as usual.
Of course, the problem with such a stance is you can quickly run out of appointees, etc. when so many lack the requisite competence. Ensnaring 4-5 people in one group chat like this can really take its toll.
There are at least 2 major issues here: the information disclosure in terms of its contents/class; and the use of an insecure means to share, that appears to also not have appropriate archiving/collecting mechanisms for such messaging to meet government requirements.
I’m sure this second point has been exploited by multiple administrations since the dawn of electronic messaging. Loopholes and workarounds abound. Blackberrys were beloved for their messaging abilities and I’d bet there were other pager or texting devices long before that. It has also long been common for two or more people to share a same email account. One starts a draft email but never sends it. The other logs in, reads the draft, deletes its contents and replies by typing fresh message in the same draft.
Good luck getting these folks to stop using their messaging platform.
[Y]ou can quickly run out of appointees, etc. when so many lack the requisite competence. Ensnaring 4-5 people in one group chat like this can really take its toll.
Another reason that makes me wonder whether this was an inside job by Deep State moles in the administration.
Megyn Kelly played a clip of Ratcliffe and Gabbard testifying before the Senate. At one point (starting around 9:30), Ratcliffe says when first was confirmed as CIA Director Signal was loaded onto his computer and he was briefed by “the CIA Records Management people” that Signal was “a permissable work use”, a practice that “preceded the current administration to the Biden Administration”.
I don’t know if that means the discussion all these top level people were having was actually on a channel approved for this level of communication, but I’d at least like to hear more.
I tried a couple of times, but couldn’t embed the clip. Here’s the link, but with a space before youtu.be which you’ll have to delete. Sorry for the inconvenience:
https:// youtu.be/8MpfAGsexbo?si=mn_hfSeAMa9fZuyW
I have also read that Signal was approved as a secure communications app in December.
If that is true, what exactly is your ethics concern? That a staffer added the wrong
phone number?
It isn’t a secure communications app, is it? Obviously our “security” experts weren’t paying attention. And there is a difference between “secure” and “sufficiently secure for classified information.” If someone without clearance can be added to a discussion by a staffer, it’s obviously not an appropriate platform.
I don’t know what Signal is, but the comm people approved it.
The participants all say nothing classified was discussed so having a security
clearance was not a requirement. You can assert that the discussion should have
been classified but 19 national security officers disagree.
50 security offcers said Hunter Biden’s laptop was fake.
This feels like CEOS (Cover Each Other’s Asses) to me.
Who is surprised that no one except possibly the journalist is in legal trouble because of this?
Technically, he really did violate the Espionage act. That others did too is beside the point.
There are 3 issues here;
An attack on a foreign country without the President being informed of it beforehand should be a big deal. Of course, that assumes that Trump was telling the truth when he used the “Sgt Schultz” defence of “I know nothing”. By law, only Congress can declare war, but that has been a dead issue (on the grounds that it’s been impractical since the invention of flight) for some time. The SCOTUS decision conferring absolute power on the President has at least some good arguments for it. More against, but some for.
The use of a comms method that is intended to evade FOI and Record keeping law should be a big deal too. We have SCI spaces so sensitive material can be memorialised but also kept out of the wrong hands. I’m not going to discuss how insecure SIGNAL is for messaging, just to confirm that it’s adequate for bank account info, just, for small amounts. Because of its ability to erase data after a set time, it’s illegal to use it for any purposes whatsoever where memorialisation is a legal requirement. All government activity for example.
Finally, the incompetence of the group administrator (the only role with privileges to do so) for adding a journalist to the group. Fortunately, the journalist didn’t reveal data compromising a CIA asset, further than it already has been.
This will all be obscured by a smokescreen of bafflegab and nonsense, with talking heads asserting that as long as data is not stamped TS NOFORN etc it’s not classified, that the President can declassify anything just by thinking about it and not telling anyone rather than following the regulatory procedure for declassification, that data about aircraft types and strike package timings don’t count as war plans, and so on.
Not that any of this matters. It’s not being taken seriously any more.
For my sins, a quarter century ago, I worked on the Australian Diplomatic Communications Network as head of systems engineering. That involved having to sign section 3 (Official Secrets) of the Crimes Act 1914. Some 10 years later, I was doing work at Haifa Naval Base for the IDF’s rumoured submarine borne nuclear deterrent. I can neither confirm nor deny etc despite what various Israeli defence ministers have admitted on open sources.
My professional opinion is that my country should never share sensitive information with the US again. You can’t be trusted. I strongly suspect that 5eyes has been effectively 4eyes for some time now.
Agreed and well said.
If Goldberg were truly so concerned about the possible damage this mistake might have made or if it could leak information to our enemies, why didn’t he break in at the very start of the conversation and warn the participants that their meeting was not secure? If he was there accidentally, how would he know whether or not other parties might also be? He was more interested in his scoop than the actual safety of the country.
I meant to reply to you but it appears I’ve accidentally posted it as a general comment. You’ll see it with my name below.
If the administration’s top officials cared about the safety of the country, they wouldn’t be using Signal in the first place to discuss critical matters.