Summary
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth denied allegations that he texted classified war plans to a Signal group chat that mistakenly included The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg.
The National Security Council confirmed the chat’s authenticity but called the inclusion of Goldberg an inadvertent mistake.
Lawmakers from both parties demanded investigations, with former CIA Director Leon Panetta warning of potential espionage violations.
Hegseth dismissed Goldberg as a “deceitful” journalist. Trump denied knowledge of the incident.
LOL, you know what, sure. yeah. pete didn’t add anybody to the chat. it’s fine. the journalist got in there on his own. by eating carrots or something.
Pete didn’t add him, Mike Waltz did. But that’s neither here nor there, they all were in the wrong.
Except the journalist
no, it was the carrots. the atlantic journalist just ate lots of carrots. it’s a known vulnerability in signal; I’ve run into it a bunch.
pete hegseth was a DUI hire.
He’s in a really unique position in that he can claim to not remember doing something awful, and most likely be telling the truth.
These fucking guys only ever lie and deny.
Are we really too stupid and weak as a country to be able to do anything about this?
It would seem the case - the US is impotent while the sitting president twiddles his thumbs and denies knowing his upper eschelon staff are using unsecure comms. Makes me laugh about the tough-guy image they want versus the limp-dick energy the display.
Lmfao
The editor in chief of The Atlantic wrote an op-ed on the whole episode, and they have corroborated and confirmed from multiple sources that he was, indeed, inadvertently shown data that is considered SCI in a Signal group chat that was likely conducted through the personal devices of administration officials.
There is no debate here. That happened. This is like rear ending someone in your car and totaling both vehicles and just refusing to even acknowledge that you even felt anything.
It’s like the “We’re all trying to find the guy who did this” skit with the guy in the hotdog suit and the hotdog car.
I agree with your position, but think it’s even worse than the situation depicted in your analogy because of the security implications and the accountability implications. I don’t know how to represent those in your analogy, though. Lol
Why is nobody talking about the fact that we are bombing Yemen? Yes, including a random person in a text channel talking classified information is a problem. But, why are we just brushing off the actual chat contents?
CENTCOM shit. If Trump and Elon were genuine, they’d get rid of this true waste of tax payer $s.
Every president since Carter has bombed Yemen (I think).
So it’s like hazing now?
That doesn’t make it a good thing. Should we just accept that the U.S. military industrial complex is what it is, and shrug it off? Bcz that’s what you’re suggesting.
I’m just saying it’s unremarkable.
Im sure the people being bombed in Yemen feel the same way…
Because pointing out that America is bombing Yemen is like pointing out that water is wet.
That’s not an excuse. There were huge ass protests over the Vietnam War, and the Iraq War. Putting pressure on officials to end this bullshit os worthwhile. Shrugging, and saying meh, it is what it is is super unhelpful.
There’s a couple reasons -
- It wasn’t so much “bombing Yemen” as it was, bombing a terrorist organization within Yemen’s borders. This is something every American administration has done for decades. That makes it poor political fodder, you can’t “one up” the competition with it.
- Most Americans would agree that the Houthis, once it is explained to them who they are, need to be bombed. The actual action would be reprehensible to some, but acceptable to most. You can’t put pressure on an admin to change their tactics when they feel they have a plurality of support.
- The sad and undeniable fact is that in American politics - American lives are simply more important than foreign ones. That’s not really unique to American culture, it’s not meant as a criticism, it’s just a sad reality. Bombing Yemen is pretty low risk for American lives - but sloppy OPSEC put American lives at huge risk so that’s where the focus is.
In a perfect world, the fact that America is committing violence in other nations and is not realistically reigned in by International Laws or Treaties would be a point worth getting upset about. But that fact is over 100 years old and has been successfully normalized. The idea of incompetent buffoons operating the Department of Defense like a bunch of frat boys trying to organize a kegger is marginally newer and more impactful on the national psyche.
I don’t think we’re ignoring that, so much as there is an overwhelming amount of bad shit to talk about stemming from this single incident.
And to be honest the bigger issue revealed here isn’t the failure to protect classified information or that they’re bombing Yemen (In a vacuum at least) right now but the fact that they are violating the law also by using an app that destroys documentation of their conversations. This has implications not only legally or militaristically but also that they know they want to do shit that would be illegal and evil enough that they don’t even want to use standard classified channels, not just bombing of Yemen but probably more future evil shit.
They’re bombing the Houthis rebels who are (were?) fucking with the red sea shipping route to protest Israel, but I’m not sure how much they’re still fucking with it today. The Yemen government isn’t fully in control of Yemen.
You’re right Pete. It wasn’t texting.
It was RCS through an untraceable encrypted messaging app named Signal
Which is WORSE since records are destroyed
Fuck you Pete ‘DUI Hire’ Hegseth.
You used a non-approved communication application and caused a massive data leak with you and your incompetent morons in office using OpSec that my junior engineers know better and if any one else did what you did, that’s be fired and be facing charges.
Fucking pathetic children who can’t take any accountability.
inadvertent mistake.
Lets give the benefit of the doubt and say it was a mistake. Is that a matter and a position, where such a mistake is tolerable? Or is it something that disqualifies for any position in that domain and demands immediate resignation?
Because if you seriously make a mistake, and you realize the gravity of it, you take responsibility for it. If you instead remain in position, you either don’t recognize the gravity of it, which is an even bigger reason to resign, or you indeed acted with intent.
But in this case it did not start with inviting Goldberg. It started with making a chat group on an unauthorized app, likely using unauthorized devices to discuss matters that are explicitly forbidden to be taken out of specific permitted official channels.
inadvertent mistake
…as opposed to the other kind of mistake.
I mean you can do something intentionally and then later realize that it was wrong to do so.
That’s most mistakes. They’re still inadvertantly mistakes.
Working the playbook. Step 1: Deny
The classified plans aren’t allowed out of the SCIF and the phone isn’t allowed in the SCIF. Anything you learn in the SCIF cannot be stored, shared, or spoken about outside of a SCIF especially on electronic media. If anyone in the military did this, like lets say Bradly Manning, and shared it with a journalist, like say Julian Assange, they would end up in prison for a while.
All that is true. In addition, those communications are subject to records retention laws, so using signal and flagging them to be deleted is illegal in itself.
Chelsea Manning*
Chealsea manning when she got out of prison. Bradly Manning when he committed the crime.
deleted by creator
Getting blackout drunk and sending texts isn’t uncommon for raging alcoholics. Source: I used to be an alcoholic (sober for 6 years)
Gratulations! More years of soberness to come for you!
6 years strong! Wooooo! Congrats!
To be clear, Hegseth (the guy with a history of getting blackout drunk) isn’t the same as Michael Waltz, the guy who invited Goldberg to the chat.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Waltz
Waltz, unlike Hegseth, is not a random idiot, he definitely knows better.
“Waltz received four Bronze Stars while serving in the Special Forces during multiple combat tours in Afghanistan, the Middle East, and Africa. He served in the Bush administration as a defense policy director in the Pentagon and as counterterrorism advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney.”
As far as Hegseth (or any of the rest of them for that matter) was concerned, the list was all vetted and pre-approved people.
The fact that NONE of them actually vetted the list before saying anything speaks volumes.
They went down the line asking “Hey, who else in your department needs to be a contact on this?” and they all sounded off one by one, except Goldberg.
Nobody thought to ask “Hey, J.G., we haven’t heard from you yet. In fact, wait, who is J.G.?”
This makes me wonder if this was part of a ploy to let the public know how messed up things are in a “blink twice if you need help” kind of way. Or did Waltz feel these people are undeserving of their cabinet appointments and so managed to lift the veil so we can all see it? Is he mad that he wasn’t considered for the Secretary of Defense position? Is this his way of being Jim from The Office and looking into the camera?
JFC we have better OPSEC in EvE Online!
Waltz, unlike Hegseth, is not a random idiot, he definitely knows better.
I’m pressing X to doubt so hard rn
You don’t get to work for Cheney if you’re an idiot.
Please, allow me to introduce you to Mr. Waltz as rebuking proof to your statement
That was ages ago. Each covid infection causes brain damage, each person has had covid 4 to 8 times by now, and older people are hurt the most by covid… So even if the guy was smart 30 years ago, we can’t assume he is smart today
Why do you think everyone has had covid a bunch of times? As far as I’m aware i’ve never had it and I’m sure there are billions more on the planet who haven’t.
I assume they meant in that group.
6 years, wow. Nice one. Keep it up.
Even if everyone in the chat had a need-to-know, you do not use insecure 3rd-party software for classified communications. Secure networks already exist for this.
I think Signal is getting tarred unfairly here. The thing that made that channel insecure was their ineptitude, not verifying who was in the group.
They gave a journalist the encryption key to their secure channel.
There’s other, record keeping related, concerns with them using signal for communicating, but I don’t think the security of Signal is being called into question when used properly.
Correct. Signal is still an excellent app. The problem is that it can have a wide array of contacts that can be added by the slip of a thumb (aka User Error). I’d imagine that secure government software does not happen to have the editors in chief of major news publications saved on there. They probably also have a flag coded in there that alerts you if someone without proper security clearance is added by mistake.
Not to mention why they are using it in the first place… so they can’t be FOIA’d
Doesn’t protect from FOIA, if you use your phone for official communication and it stores records, your phone can be FOIA’d.
Isn’t the issue that Signal messages aren’t stored on the phone and can be set to auto delete after some time? So there’s no tracking of official federal business? Or am I thinking about this the wrong way?
Signal messages ARE stored on the phone. They’re briefly stored on the signal servers with end to end encryption as well until they are transmitted to all the recipients, at which point signal deletes them from their server. And yes they can be auto-deleted.
Once they are on the phone though, all the encryption benefits are up to the user.
Did they password protect signal? Is their phone itself encrypted at rest? How long after the phone is unlocked and signal opened do the messages remain unencrypted where malware could then access them? How long does the phone remain unlocked once the password is entered but the screen is turned off? Are they even using secure passwords on phones or simple 4 digit pins?
I see - thank you. If they delete the messages from their phone there would be no tracking of official government business, right? Also, Gabbard wouldn’t disclose if she used a personal phone for this Signal chat or not which is troublesome.
No you’re absolutely right and the fact that this is apparently common practice in the admin is revelatory.
Legally yes. Practically, the people handling the FOIA request do not know about it and do not have access to it, so they will not look at it when responding to a FOIA request. Also practically, if you submit a FOIA request for operational details of military action, the response will be no, and every judge you stand before to challenge that no will side with the government.
According to the original article, the messages were set to auto delete after a max of 4 weeks :)
downs entire glass of whiskey “wasn’t me”
It was really the whiskey’s fault when you think about it.
You dumb fuck, there are screenshots of all of it, plus your own people admitted it
These dipshits can’t get their thumbs out of each other’s butts long enough to get their story straight. I’d laugh if I thought there would be any real consequences for this nonsense.
Only 46 months to go…
Ah yes - the classic Trump approach… just yell Fake News as loud as possible.
I’m seriously hopeful that the people who have historically given into this lie are wising up.
Narrator: “They weren’t.”
In my circle they are, thankfully.
My seed of hope: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT-2EobJKzE
Nice!
Don’t hold your breath. The Repubs will just say they haven’t read the news.
While acknowledging that Trump voters are emotional and fear-prone, they’re not entirely stupid and generally not cultists, probably, maybe. Can we have some sliver of hope? The ones I know are certainly not stupid but are tragically misinformed and savants of confirmation bias. I’ve also noticed that they care a great deal. It seems more like a target misalignment problem than a broken turret.
The ones I know are certainly not stupid but are tragically misinformed and savants of confirmation bias
Can you please define “stupid”? Because this feels like a very apt definition of the word you’re trying to use
I think he means there are some otherwise intelligent people voting against their self interests because the echo chambers and media they are exposed to have convinced them to.
Smart people can be misinformed too. Finding a way for them to be informed could help those ones (I wish I knew some of them, because I think I could help, but the trumpets I know are the cultist ones with really screwed up morals).
A smart person is impossible to dupe twice. This is Trump second term, anyone voting for him a second time after the first one does not deserve to be called “intelligent”. They are as stupid as they come and they can only blame themselves for that, especially in an era where information are abundant and vary.
This is moronic, elitist, trash
Also, start with talking bad of media that was involved (see Orange’s first comment).
