The Incompetence is the Point
A quick note on SignalGate™
Hey all. I just have to touch on the insanity of this week before we delve into legal history from the 19th century. Because OMG.
By now you have all probably heard about what I am calling Signalgate, but what others have called Whiskeyleaks, which is (admittedly) way better. Earlier this week, The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg dropped a bombshell: Members of the Trump Administration inadvertently invited him into their private chat on Signal, where they discussed an upcoming bombing raid against the Houthis in Yemen. The original story is here (and should be a gift link), while Goldberg’s follow-up that came out yesterday is here.
Before I do my lightning-fast recap, I just have to say this is one of the craziest political stories I have heard since I started writing about this stuff. It is truly just a bizarre screw-up, compounded now by multiple days of denials or obfuscations. I am trying to think of something similar, but nothing jumps out.
Anyway, here is the recap, if you don’t feel like reading the Atlantic article:
Earlier this month, Goldberg was added as a contact on Signal™ by Michael Waltz, Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor.
Goldberg initially thought he was about to be scammed by a fake Michael Waltz, so he left it alone.
Then, several members of the Administration - J.D. Vance, Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard,1 etc. - are all added to a chat with Goldberg. At this point, Goldberg is sure it’s a hoax, because why would he get added to a chat like this?
Then, the Administration starts spouting off war plans for an upcoming attack in Yemen. Goldberg begins to wonder if it is real.
An attack comes, and Goldberg is now convinced that it is real.
Goldberg leaves the chat and the other members are notified (put a pin in this).
He confirms with the Administration that the chat was real.
He publishes his piece, but leaves out the detailed war plans and directions from Hegseth, and also withholds the name of a CIA agent identified in the chat (put another pin in this).
The Administration denies that there was any classified information in the chat or war plans. Two members testify under oath to this effect.
Goldberg then publishes the contents of the chat, clearly showing that there were war plans actively being discussed in the chat, along with sensitive information.
The Administration looks stupid (daily occurrence even outside of this).
Again, this whole thing is nuts. I have trouble putting my finger on precisely the worst aspect of it: Is it the sheer incompetence? The totally misplaced confidence in their own intellects? The use of emojis when we were sending bombs to another country? J.D. Vance in general? There is a lot to unpack.
Easy questions out of the way:
Why did Goldberg leave the chat??? Seems like he passed on a goldmine of information.
I think he was 100% right to leave the chat. Goldberg is an experienced journalist and is well-respected on both sides of the aisle. He can probably suss out classified information, which - in this case - would not be useful for journalistic purposes. The Atlantic doesn’t need to publish U.S. war plans to serve its readers. Also, if you are exposed to classified information, and have full knowledge that it is, indeed, classified, you are a target for prosecution if you do nothing to remedy that.
What the hell is Signal?
Some of you guys have messaged me on Signal, but it is an end-to-end encrypted messaging service used by lots of journalists and people in government. However, while it is good for those purposes, it is not secure and can be hacked pretty easily. That is another reason why Goldberg left the chat: He was in a Safeway parking lot while he was getting the messages about the strike against the Houthis. I am not sure how many foreign agents are hanging out in a Safeway, but if he had been somewhere else - say, the Vatican2 - the chances of his phone being hacked were really high.
The second point is really key here. Although it was stupid, Waltz inviting Goldberg to the Signal chat isn’t the biggest screwup here. The fact that these guys were doing any official business on Signal is truly alarming. Signal is great for messaging with government employees about where you want to meet up for lunch, or for some gossip. But you cannot be doing official work for the Administration on Signal, because it means you are using your personal phones, which are not secure devices.
Federal government employees with any level of clearance are actually not allowed to keep Signal on their official phones, precisely because it isn’t secure. This would apply to every single person in the chat, aside from Goldberg, who left it once he realized what was happening.
You will all remember the great Hillary Clinton Email Scandal™ of 2014-2016, which every Republican treated as the greatest betrayal of America in world history. The main issue there was that instead of using an official government email, Clinton - while Secretary of State - set up her own email server. This is like every member of the chat setting up their own server, but making it mobile so that it could travel with them everywhere, all while being exposed to random bluetooth connections and Wi-Fi networks. Insane.
Here is the cherry on top: Tulsi Gabbard and Steve Witkoff traveled overseas while they were active in the group chat. Gabbard was in India, while Witkoff was in Russia. India’s intelligence service is good (although not as good as Pakistan’s, which is one of the world’s best), but I’m not 100% sure they got access to the chat through her phone.
The Russians, on the other hand, 1000% did get access to Witkoff’s phone and were able to read the chat. But, Witkoff and Gabbard already repeat whatever the Kremlin says anyway, so I’m not sure how useful hacking their phones would be.
The whole thing is alarming, although I do take comfort in the fact that stories like this just prove how chemically stupid all of these people are. Hegseth said, live in the chat, “We are clean on OPSEC,”3 right before the attack launched. EXCEPT THERE WAS A JOURNALIST IN THE CHAT, PETE.
But the most alarming thing to me has been Donald Trump’s response. Let’s do another timeline, just for fun:
On Tuesday, Trump is asked about the story and has no idea. He has to ask the reporter to repeat themselves and explain it to him. Normally, I am prone to say Trump is lying but he genuinely seemed to be clueless.
Trump is asked about it throughout the week, with the focus put on Hegseth. Trump then says, “He had nothing to do with this. Hegseth? How do you bring Hegseth into this?”
Trump is then asked about the Signal group chat specifically, and this is what he says:
“Somebody in my group either screwed up or it’s a bad signal. You know, it’s a bad signal, happens too. But, seems to be, maybe came in with a staffer, and it was by accident, what we can tell, we’ll know pretty much today, I think. But, we have some pretty good guys checking out the phones. But, it’s something that is not a big deal, other than you want to find out who did it and how they did it, because you don’t, don’t want it to happen, you know, in the future, you can’t have that happen.”
So, the strike against the Houthis happened on March 15th. The members of the group chat knew Goldberg left the chat on that date, and then did not bother to tell the Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces.
What the actual contents of the chat tell me is that Trump clearly is not in charge and these guys - who, again, are holding sensitive conversations on Signal - are acting on their own. Even more alarming is that Trump cannot even identify the fact that Pete Hegseth was IN the chat, giving detailed war plans!
Pro-tip to the media: A stutter is not dementia (no matter how hard conservatives want it to be); that is evidence of dementia. The President of the United States talked about a scandal for a week and then could not even identify the major person associated with it.
Finally, Trump clearly doesn’t understand what Signal actually is, or no one bothered to explain it to him. Truly horrifying.
The incompetence here is alarming on its own, but (as the title suggests) it’s actually the point. Trump is clearly not interested in being President, and instead wants to punish everyone around him. He wants to do tariffs to Canada and Mexico, because he wants to be a bully. He wants to punish Ukraine, because he thinks they’re weak and they were mean to him in 2020. He pardoned the January 6th terrorists because he knew it would make his enemies angry.
He mostly ran to keep himself out of jail, but now he is just occupied with punishing everyone who doesn’t support him. He doesn’t even like the country all that much. But he’s an absent leader, which is why J.D. Vance felt comfortable bashing him in the group chat, and it’s why they didn’t even bother to tell him about the chat in the first place (or Goldberg being in it in the second place).
None of these guys are actually qualified to hold their positions, but are instead there because they would cause the most pain. Hegseth, in particular, is everything he imagines a D.U.I. D.E.I. hire to be: He is unqualified and incompetent, with no real credentials. He is barely qualified to work as a cashier, let alone as head of the world’s most powerful military, but he got put there because he was the most triggering to the libs.
We are fundamentally unsafe with these people in charge, and that’s the point. Buckle up.
Gabbard testified on Wednesday that there was no classified information in the chat. The actual contents show that to be untrue, so she may have perjured herself. But classification is, very much, a technical issue. It is sometimes determined in hindsight, which is why every person in that chat should have known they were reading classified information.
The Vatican is a magnet for foreign activity, and I mention this because Gabbard was there with a Russian agent. Pretty careless, and that’s before Whiskeyleaks happened.
OPSEC means Operation Security, which means no foreign adversaries have access to the chat.
I can’t believe the world’s shittiest circus is going to last 4 years. Again.
Let be honest, Hegseth just thought he sounded badass saying “Opsec”. He is grotesquely unqualified and it will eventually get American military members killed