signalmankenneth
Verified User
Pete Hegseth should have never been confirmed as Secretary of Defense, he is woefully unqualified for this position along with being totally incompetent too?!! Our national security is at risk with people like, Waltz, Vance, Hegseth, Rubio, Gabbard, and Ratcliffe?!!
Washington was rocked Monday by a truly extraordinary story.
The editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, recounted how he had — apparently inadvertently — been added to a group chat featuring some of the most senior members of the United States government.
Even more dramatically, the purpose of the chat, on the messaging app Signal, was to discuss a then-imminent U.S. attack on Houthi targets in Yemen earlier this month.
Goldberg said that, through the texts, he had known specifics about the attacks about two hours before they took place on March 15. Goldberg wrote that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth sent detailed plans to everyone on the chat.
Goldberg did not publish the specifics of that element of the chat. But he said of Hegseth’s messages: “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.”
Here are five big takeaways from the explosive story.
Goldberg wrote that the chain of events began on March 11 when he got an unsolicited Signal invite from someone named Michael Waltz. Trump’s national security adviser is Mike Waltz, a former Florida congressman.
Goldberg was then added to the group chat about Yemen two days later. The group appears to have included virtually everyone at the highest reaches of defense and national security in the Trump administration except the president himself.
Waltz, Vice President Vance, Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Department Secretary Scott Bessent, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe all appear to have been among the participants. So too, apparently, were key figures in Trump’s orbit including White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and key adviser Stephen Miller.
Goldberg does not appear to have announced his presence to the other members of the chat, nor did he conceal it. He wrote that he appeared in the chat as “JG,” much as other participants also seem to have been identified that way, including “MAR” [Marco Antonio Rubio] and “SM,” which Goldberg surmises was Miller.
The situation was so peculiar that Goldberg himself wondered if he was being set up or led astray by hoaxers.
He was not.
When Goldberg asked Brian Hughes, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, for comment, he responded, “This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.”
But what if someone less scrupulous had been included on messages of such sensitivity?
The Atlantic editor-in-chief wrote that, among other things, Hegseth’s message “contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.”
Information like that would have been gold dust for adversaries. So too would insight into what people at the apex of power in Washington were talking about with each other.
Then there is the question of using Signal at all for such a matter — and whether any laws may have been broken in the process.
As Goldberg notes in his story, the use of Signal to discuss a military strike “may have violated several provisions of the Espionage Act, which governs the handling of ‘national defense’ information.”
A separate but related question is whether Waltz’s apparent actions in setting some of the messages to self-delete violated laws about the preservation of official records.
One way or another, it’s a mess.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5211761-us-government-group-chat/
Washington was rocked Monday by a truly extraordinary story.
The editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, recounted how he had — apparently inadvertently — been added to a group chat featuring some of the most senior members of the United States government.
Even more dramatically, the purpose of the chat, on the messaging app Signal, was to discuss a then-imminent U.S. attack on Houthi targets in Yemen earlier this month.
Goldberg said that, through the texts, he had known specifics about the attacks about two hours before they took place on March 15. Goldberg wrote that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth sent detailed plans to everyone on the chat.
Goldberg did not publish the specifics of that element of the chat. But he said of Hegseth’s messages: “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.”
Here are five big takeaways from the explosive story.
Yes, the chat is real — and bizarre
The entire episode that Goldberg describes is bizarre — and troubling from the point of view of those who would take the handling of sensitive information seriously.Goldberg wrote that the chain of events began on March 11 when he got an unsolicited Signal invite from someone named Michael Waltz. Trump’s national security adviser is Mike Waltz, a former Florida congressman.
Goldberg was then added to the group chat about Yemen two days later. The group appears to have included virtually everyone at the highest reaches of defense and national security in the Trump administration except the president himself.
Waltz, Vice President Vance, Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Department Secretary Scott Bessent, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe all appear to have been among the participants. So too, apparently, were key figures in Trump’s orbit including White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and key adviser Stephen Miller.
Goldberg does not appear to have announced his presence to the other members of the chat, nor did he conceal it. He wrote that he appeared in the chat as “JG,” much as other participants also seem to have been identified that way, including “MAR” [Marco Antonio Rubio] and “SM,” which Goldberg surmises was Miller.
The situation was so peculiar that Goldberg himself wondered if he was being set up or led astray by hoaxers.
He was not.
When Goldberg asked Brian Hughes, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, for comment, he responded, “This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.”
A lot of ‘what if’ questions
Goldberg did not publish anything while military operations were underway.But what if someone less scrupulous had been included on messages of such sensitivity?
The Atlantic editor-in-chief wrote that, among other things, Hegseth’s message “contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.”
Information like that would have been gold dust for adversaries. So too would insight into what people at the apex of power in Washington were talking about with each other.
Then there is the question of using Signal at all for such a matter — and whether any laws may have been broken in the process.
As Goldberg notes in his story, the use of Signal to discuss a military strike “may have violated several provisions of the Espionage Act, which governs the handling of ‘national defense’ information.”
A separate but related question is whether Waltz’s apparent actions in setting some of the messages to self-delete violated laws about the preservation of official records.
One way or another, it’s a mess.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5211761-us-government-group-chat/
