In a stunning breach of protocol, law, and good sense, a plethora of high ranking individuals from the White House, National Security, and Department of Defense conducted a conversation about the upcoming bombing of Yemen over an unauthorized and non-secure Signal group chat…
…And apparently invited the chief editor of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, to the group. Michael Waltz, National Security Advisor, is the one who invited Goldberg to the Signal chat.
Before I go further, let’s be clear on a few things. First, this whole shitshow should have taken place in a SCIF. Signal is not secure, and is known to have been compromised by GRU hackers in the past. All of these idiots were using private non-secured phones for this conversation, because government-secured phones cannot have Signal loaded onto them – due to the aforementioned security vulnerabilities. (Edit: I was incorrect about this. This was true in the previous admin, though they did reccommend Signal for non-classified commuinications. Tulsi Gabbard admitted that under Trump, government phones come pre-loaded with Signal.) One of these idiots, Tulsi Gabbard, refused to answer congress if her phone was private or government issued because “it’s under review”. Motherfucker, how is it under review if it is your own phone or a phone issued to you?
On to the meat, here.
The chat included:
- JD Vance, Vice President of the United States of America
- Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense
- Stephen Miller, Senior Advisor to the President, seditionist, and white nationalist
- Michael Waltz, National Security Advisor
- Marco Rubio, Secretary of State
- John Ratcliffe, Director of the CIA
- Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence
- Steve Witkoff, Special Envoy to the Middle East
- Scott Bessent, Secretary of the Treasury
- Brian McCormack, Chief of Staff for the National Security Council
- Susie Wiles, White House Chief of Staff
- Joe Kent, Acting Chief of Staff for Tulsi Gabbard
- Jeffrey Goldberg, Editor-in-Chief of The Atlantic – invited by accident, possibly because they assumed “JG” in Signal was Jamieson Greer, a trade representative.
The conversation between these individuals (and others unnamed because they’re not in a decision making capacity) revolved around how and when to strike Houthi targets in Yemen, the disposition of forces and targets to be hit, courtesy of Hegseth, and further planning for operations in and around Yemen.
As of the time of this posting Goldberg has not revealed much of the content of the meeting, because he did not wish to put American security or lives at risk. He did share certain choice statements by the Vice President, Hegseth, and others, concerning if Europe was pulling its weight with regards to securing the Suez Canal against the Houthis, and breaking with Trump over certain matters of policy. The main thrust of what he has revealed is that the meeting would involve planning strikes. Goldberg has said the texts he captured while in the meeting provided plenty of sensitive information, though the volume of those texts is deliberately unclear at the moment.
What is absolutely clear from this Signal meeting, especially since at least one member (Steve Witkoff) was in Russia when he was added to the chat and the discussion took place, is that none of these buffoons has any business being in the positions they are. I’ve seen World of Warcraft and EVE Online guilds practice better security than them. I know college students that understand security risks better.
We already knew they were selected for loyalty and not competence, but this drives the point home: these people are completely incompetent. It’s only by absolute blind luck that no American forces have been killed, and it’s only by that same dint of luck that (as far as we know) no other information has been captured by Russia or others who have exploited Signal’s known vulnerabilities.
Had this group been anyone else but a pack of MAGA loyalists – anyone – they would already be thrown in jail, under threat of all manner of heinous shit. Hillary Clinton was hounded for years over her private email server, and all we learned from that is that she shared recipes on her unsecured devices. This is infinitely worse.
This is a carnival of absolute idiocy.
When questioned about Goldberg’s article, the NSC revealed that yes, it was indeed true, and verified the information contained therein. Trump, when asked, called The Atlantic a failing paper with no readers – a typical deflection by the asshole in chief. Hegseth was questioned about it just after he had landed in Hawaii – he was in transit when the story broke. He said Goldberg was a liar, no meeting took place, and Goldberg certainly wouldn’t have been part of it.
A little embarrassing given that the NSC had confirmed everything hours earlier.
Gabbard, as of around two hours ago, doubled down on that confirmation, suggesting it’s not that bad because nothing classified was discussed. We must take them at their word, apparently.
In response, Goldberg has said he’d be happy to release all of the texts from the conversation to the public, if there’s nothing classified in there.
We shall see where it goes from here.