Trump's brain trust leaks secret military plans in dumbest way possible
Democrats are aghast after the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic reported that he was accidentally added to an unsecure text chain in which Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz, and multiple other top national security and Trump administration officials discussed planning a military strike in Yemen.
The Trump administration says the text chain—in which the officials were discussing not only whether to strike the Iran-backed Houthi rebel group, but how and when they would do it—is authentic. They are looking into how Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg was added to the thread.
But the fact that the Trump administration officials were discussing classified and highly sensitive military plans on a messaging app is the real problem.
Goldberg reported that Hegseth was discussing information that, “could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command’s area of responsibility.”
He also reported that multiple national security lawyers said Waltz “may have violated several provisions of the Espionage Act, which governs the handling of ‘national defense’ information.”
From Goldberg’s report:
All of these lawyers said that a U.S. official should not establish a Signal thread in the first place. Information about an active operation would presumably fit the law’s definition of “national defense” information. The Signal app is not approved by the government for sharing classified information. The government has its own systems for that purpose. If officials want to discuss military activity, they should go into a specially designed space known as a sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF—most Cabinet-level national-security officials have one installed in their home—or communicate only on approved government equipment, the lawyers said. Normally, cellphones are not permitted inside a SCIF, which suggests that as these officials were sharing information about an active military operation, they could have been moving around in public. Had they lost their phones, or had they been stolen, the potential risk to national security would have been severe.
And on top of that, Goldberg reported that by using an app like Signal—where texts are set to disappear—the Trump officials could also have been violating federal record laws.
“If you read one article today, make it this one,” Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO) wrote in a post on X of Goldberg’s report. “Total incompetence, yet again. And putting our national security at great risk.”
Democrats are now demanding information and threatening to launch investigations.
“Only one word for this: FUBAR,” Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY), who served as an Army intelligence officer in Iraq, wrote in a post on Bluesky, referring to the military slang term to describe something as “Fucked Up Beyond All Repair.” “If House Republicans won’t hold a hearing on how this happened IMMEDIATELY, I’ll do it my damn self.”
Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-CA) also said he will demand an investigation.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), who lost both of her legs while serving in Iraq, was aghast at the recklessness of the Trump administration officials.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) said, “Every single one of the government officials on this text chain have now committed a crime – even if accidentally – that would normally involve a jail sentence.”
And Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) connected the incompetence of the Trump administration’s national security officials to the Trump giving co-President Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency bros access to Americans’ personal information.
“The Trump Administration, which just committed one of the biggest and most incompetent national security breaches in history, is also giving Elon Musk and his team of unvetted lackeys access to every American's personal information,” Beyer wrote, putting in stark terms just how much trouble we all are in with these fools leading the federal government.
Ultimately, there is so much irony to this story.
First, almost every member of that chain criticized former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, citing national security concerns.
“Talk about a DOUBLE STANDARD: Biden’s sitting National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan sent top secret emails to Hillary Clinton’s private account and the DOJ didn't do a DAMN THING about it,” Waltz—who is responsible for adding Goldberg to the text chain in which they were recklessly discussing military operations—said in a 2023 appearance on Fox News. “No wonder Americans are losing faith in our justice system.”
“Seems like every day there are new revelations on how Hillary's private email server put national security at risk,” Rubio wrote in a 2016 tweet.
"Hillary Clinton put some of the highest, most sensitive intelligence information on her private server because maybe she thinks she's above the law, or maybe she just wanted the convenience of being able to read it on her Blackberry,” Rubio also said at a campaign event for his failed presidential bid in January 2016. “This is unacceptable."
Even more ironic is that just last week, Hegseth reported that the Department of Defense was going to be investigating who leaked his plan to brief co-President Elon Musk on the United States' plans for war with China—another thing that makes Americans less safe as there is no reason Musk should be privy to that information.
Given that Hegseth is discussing confidential military plans via Signal, maybe he should look in the mirror for why that information leaked.
Worst of all, as Democrats lambast the Trump administration officials and call for investigations, Republicans have been virtually silent—even though they would be screaming to the heavens if a Democratic administration had done anything even remotely similar.
As of press time, few Republican lawmakers have commented. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) posted on X, “Classified information should not be transmitted on unsecured channels—and certainly not to those without security clearances, including reporters. Period. Safeguards must be put in place to ensure this never happens again.”
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told Semafor’s Burgess Everett that it, “Sounds like a huge screw up. I mean, is there any other way to describe it?”
We can guarantee that Cornyn would’ve had much stronger words if it had been Biden administration officials doing the same.
And Trump himself used the age-old excuse that he hadn’t heard the news in order to avoid commenting on it.
“I don't know anything about it. I'm not a big fan of The Atlantic. To me, it's a magazine that's going out of business. ...You're telling me about it for the first time,” Trump told reporters on Monday.
If the commander in chief did not yet know about the fact that his top aides were putting the country at risk by discussing military operations via text message, then that’s a scandal in and of itself.