On Friday, Seven Stebbins announced the Defense Dept would be launching an investigation into the security breach resulting from multiple administration members using Signal for a group chat about the impending bombing of Yemen. Signal isn't secure and shouldn't have been used. SignalGate is a serious issue and it's not going way now matter how much The Convicted Felon tries to wish it away.
The American people did not learn of the breach because Donald Chump got honest nor did they learn because one of the participants got honest and respected the American people's right to know. We The People only learned of it because journalist Jeffrey Goldberg was mistakenly added to the chat. On Friday, Senator Tammy Duckworth's office issued the following:
[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – Today, combat Veteran and U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL)—a member of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) and U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC)—issued the following statement in response to the Department of Defense (DoD) Acting Inspector General Steven Stebbins announcing an investigation into Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s use of Signal, an unclassified, commercially-available messaging app, to discuss specific details about a U.S. military strike in Yemen:
“Of course, this obvious leak of classified information by the Secretary of Defense himself must be investigated. Not just by the DoD Inspector General, but by the FBI and Congress as well—and I'll keep pushing for accountability from these senior Trump officials who continue to put our troops and national security at risk.”
Since he was first nominated and throughout his confirmation hearing, Duckworth has made it clear that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is unqualified to lead our men and women in uniform—and after this egregious national security breach that needlessly put the lives of our troops in greater danger, Duckworth has demanded that Hegseth resign or be fired immediately. Earlier this week, Duckworth slammed the Trump Administration for declaring SignalGate “case-closed” without holding any senior Administration officials responsible.
This is a major issue and the American people see it as such. Last week, Donald Chump -- who refuses to hold anyone accountable for the breach -- announced the matter was "closed."
The case is not closed and Chump just makes it clear how unqualified he himself is both to president and to protect the country. Froma Harrop (CREATORS SYNDICATE) explains:
Intelligence failures played a part in both the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the Sept. 11 attacks. Imagine the confidence gained if you're a foreign foe, and you've just witnessed the clown car currently heading our national security.
Start with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. His main qualification for overseeing this massive department seems his role as a Fox News pretty boy who slobbers over Donald Trump. How out of his depths is this guy?
Just last month, the National Security Agency warned the Defense Department against the risks of using Signal. Hegseth then proceeded to put an actual attack plan on Signal.
Hegseth has also been bringing relatives to sensitive briefings. He's given his brother Phil a fancy title: senior adviser to the secretary for the Department of Homeland Security and liaison officer to the Defense Department. Phil's relevant experience for that position is about zero. His claim to fame is setting up a podcast company.
Phil has gone with Pete on official trips to Guantanamo Bay and Asia. What a perk for the boys to have the Pentagon's 747 aircraft to chauffeur them around.
Pete Hegseth has also brought his wife, a former Fox News producer, into restricted meetings. One was with foreign military leaders at the NATO headquarters in Brussels. (Not relevant but creepy, Hegseth likes to be seen smooching his bride.)
The group chat included Tulsi Gabbard who is -- hard to believe -- our director of national intelligence. Even when pressed by colleagues years ago, she refused to call Edward Snowden a traitor. Snowden was a government contractor who leaked a treasure trove of classified documents. He now lives in Russia. Members of the national security establishment have suspected Gabbard of being a Russian asset herself.
At THE HARVARD CRIMSON, Cassidy C. Crabb, Alfredo J. Hernandez and Jordanos S. Sisay report:
National security experts at Harvard expressed shock at the Trump administration’s breach of security in a March Signal group chat, criticizing their mode of communication while praising journalist Jeffrey Goldberg.
Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic magazine, was added to a group chat on the messaging platform Signal where top Trump administrative officials discussed war plans regarding U.S. military strikes in Yemen.
Joseph S. Nye Jr, former dean of the Harvard Kennedy School who served as Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Clinton, said a leak this severe would typically result in firings.
“If something like this happened when I was in the Pentagon during the Clinton administration, there would have been extreme discontent.” Nye said. “People would have been fired.”
Matthew Bunn, a professor of national security at HKS, similarly said that he would “probably be headed for jail” if he had unknowingly leaked “comparably sensitive information” to the press.
“Nobody should be discussing particular times of US strikes, particular weapons, targets, et cetera, over Signal,” he said.
Bunn, who also worked in the Clinton White House, noted that the leak may “have an impact on other countries’ willingness to share information with the United States.”
“Sharing sensitive information between countries is based on trust, and it’s based on trust that that information won’t be handled in an appropriate way, that trust is very easy to damage,” he said.
Nye primarily placed blame on National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth for the breach.
Meanwhile, at THE GUARDIAN, Hugo Lowell reports:
Donald Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz included a journalist in the Signal group chat about plans for US strikes in Yemen after he mistakenly saved his number months before under the contact of someone else he intended to add, according to three people briefed on the matter.
The mistake was one of several missteps that came to light in the White House’s internal investigation, which showed a series of compounding slips that started during the 2024 campaign and went unnoticed until Waltz created the group chat last month.
Trump briefly considered firing Waltz over the episode, more angered by the fact that Waltz had the number of Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic – a magazine he despises – than the fact that the military operation discussion took place on an unclassified system such as Signal.
But Trump decided against firing him in large part because he did not want the Atlantic and the news media more broadly to have the satisfaction of forcing the ouster of a top cabinet official weeks into his second term. Trump was also mollified by the findings of the internal investigation.
The disclosures nonetheless triggered a “forensic review” by the White House information technology office, which found that Waltz’s phone had saved Goldberg’s number as part of an unlikely series of events that started when Goldberg emailed the Trump campaign last October.
Though interesting it doesn't address or solve anything. The how was never the issue. The issues are (a) the chat was not secure, (b) they'd all been advised not to use Signal and (c) multiple people on the conversation and no one noticed that a journalist was part of it -- or a participant who wasn't speaking.
They failed at their jobs. People need to be fired.
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