I’m actually kind of pleasantly surprised that there has been a slight degree of public condemnation and pushback in Congress and in the media over the national security shitshow, which, btw, just keeps getting fucking worse:
President Trump’s Ukraine and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff was in Moscow, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, when he was included in a group chat with more than a dozen other top administration officials — and inadvertently, one journalist — on the messaging app Signal, a CBS News analysis of open-source flight information and Russian media reporting has revealed.
Russia has repeatedly tried to compromise Signal, a popular commercial messaging platform that many were shocked to learn senior Trump administration officials had used to discuss sensitive military planning.
Witkoff arrived in Moscow shortly after noon local time on March 13, according to data from the flight tracking website FlightRadar24, and Russian state media broadcast video of his motorcade leaving Vnukovo International Airport shortly after. About 12 hours later, he was added to the “Houthi PC small group” chat on Signal, along with other top Trump administration officials, to discuss an imminent military operation against the Houthis in Yemen, according to The Atlantic magazine editor Jeffrey Goldberg, who was included on the chat for reasons that remain unclear.
There are just so many things that are bad about this that go beyond operational security, including the fact that this is no way to plan an operation and there appears to have been no regard giving to the strategic aim or geopolitical considerations to have policy making be made by a bunch of idiots over signal. And that doesn’t even get into the fact that they are using signal so as to leave no trace and make everything null and void for FOIA requests.
The thing to keep in mind is that these are the same idiots rummaging through your IRS and SS data. And it goes without saying that were these Democrats everyone of them would be fired/resigned and then probably charged with crimes by… a Democratic attorney general.
Oh, and there’s the whole THEY ARE RAINING HELL AND DEATH ON PEOPLE IN YEMEN AND THERE IS NO REASON TO TRUST THAT THEY ARE NOT JUST INDISCRIMINATELY MURDERING INNOCENTS.
A Ghost to Most
The crowds continue to grow. More people are realizing the danger, even the christian cultists and the greedos. Leopards are not discerning eaters.
Other MJS
facebook.com/reel/1349604279514919
NotMax
The volcano of public outrage is rumbling ominously, as it were.
Old School
But how could he have known to be careful.
Oh.
(From February)
JoyceH
You know this Signal group wasn’t their first. It’s a way of life for them. We should all just assume that absolutely everything that happens during this administration is known to the Russians, the Chinese, and many others in real time.
RaflW
Among other things, the Brits are digesting what the Junior Varsity vicepresident was saying. He basically says that attacking in Yemen to protect Suez is of big benefit to Europe, but that they’re ungrateful and don’t deserve the help.
The UK is, as I understand it, in the Gulf region providing naval security support right now.
Vance is such a god dammed asshole that he is insulting the European contribution to oil shipment stability. They just keep on going on this, as if Canada and western Europe didn’t take losses in Bush’s GWOT, etc.
Really setting the stage for all of Europe to behave in their own self interest if Trump’s Greenland delusions lead to … whatever the fuck that might lead to. [headdesk]
Jay
It’s getting interesting. The Black Sea deal released today, gives Ukraine nothing, gives the US nothing, and lifts sanctions on ruZzian grain exports.
Shart of the Deal.
There is one teeny, tiny little catch though.
ruZZian Ag, in order to get paid for said exports, needs access to SWIFT, and Europe has a veto.
Elect Clowns, Expect a Circus.
RaflW
@JoyceH: Yet also un-FOIAble at home. Secret from the US public and press, but tapped by China & Russia. Oh, and are we now out of Five Eyes? I’ve lost track of the national security fiascos.
cmorenc
The Trump Administration is aggressively using every means to try to insulate their actions from legal or constitutional accountability. Messaging apps to evade FOIA inquiries. Or even more ominously, “state secrets act” to evade due process and court scrutiny of whether ICE has improperly swept up not just green card holders, naturalized citizens, or even birthright citizens before deporting them to 3W hellholes beyond practical scrutiny or legal process. We don’t know to what extent Musk and DOGE have already swept up private SS or IRS data, or are continuing to do so despite court order. The US Marshall Service the Courts largely depend on to enforce court orders are under control of Trump MAGA loyalist AG Pam Bondi.
The only potential saving grace is the sheer incompetence of Trump and his minions, which is beginning to alienate the public outside MAGA cult circles. Nevertheless, recklessly incompetent people can do enormous damage before they get stopped, if they can be stopped, and that may depend on the extent nonvoters and less MAGA-cult Trump voters are awakened enough to turn sharply on Trump and his minions. Ds are unlikely to be able to do it alone if the public doesn’t sufficiently awaken from slumber to resist rather than cower or bury their heads in the sand.
SpaceUnit
Somehow I don’t think Russia needs to hack Signal to get US intel anymore.
chemiclord
But see, they aren’t using drones, which is very important to me when it is convenient.
Leto
@RaflW: we might as well be out of 5 Eyes. I know if I were one of the other four countries I would be limiting the amount of data moving to us as much as I could. If Europe is planning a post American reality/new Eurocentric center, cutting us out of the information loop is critical. Yes, those other nations have their own issues but limiting the 900lbs gorilla’s capacity to operate is key.
This is part of the post-American world that we’ve created. /shrug
Scout211
The smears of Goldberg have begun. He is prepared to release the whole chat to the public. Is this a threat? You betcha!
Josie
@Scout211:
Good for him!
Geminid
@RaflW: Germany and France have also contributed to the naval force trying to secure Red Sea shipping. The Germans got off to inauspicious start last year when their ship tried to shoot down an American drone. The first missile missed, so then they fired another one and it missed too! I figure the German naval officer most responsible might still be inventorying bolts and washers at some naval base.
Bill Arnold
@Old School:
Those Russian techniques vs Signal involve phishing; they are not guaranteed to succeed. (A QR code, and tricking people into linking a device to their main device, from my limited reading.)
The basic security issue here is not the strength of Signal; it is that the endpoints (phones) are attackable by state-level entities, using tools like Pegasus, and the targets involved are all high level, so worth risking zero-day exploits. (There may also be zero-day exploits for Signal itself, but generally it has been pretty good.)
The odds that at least one person in the group was using a compromised phone are significant, perhaps even high.
They were also breaking records-keeping laws, using messages that delete after a month (or a week? reporting varied) in the group.
They should have been using something like this:
DMCC-S Classified Tablet and Phone
cmorenc
@Leto: A key reason Trump has abruptly turned the US government from alliance to abrasive hostility to Europe and toward coziness with Russia is because he knows creating a Putin or oven an Orban-style plutocracy is incompatible with the sort of Western democratic values and government Europe represents. Mix that with his dream of replacing income taxes with tariff revenue, a substantial portion of which would need to come from European, Mexican, or Canadian trade.
TEL
This might actually be the scandal that just won’t die. Not because of Democrats, although it would be sheer political incompetence not to take full advantage of it. Because this distills every part of the Trump administration that gives a fair number of Republicans the heebee jeebies about him. Not taking national security seriously, not caring about American soldiers, clownish incompetence, caring more about Russia than our historical security partners. It’s the reason why my Republican acquaintances who didn’t vote or voted Kamala couldn’t vote for Trump. It’s a serious crack in the Republican armor.
Jay
@Scout211:
How is it a threat?
In today’s Committee meeting on Global Threats, we learned over and over again from assorted “Officals” that none of this, including, targets, units involved, locations, timetables were classified.
We also learned,……….
https://nitter.poast.org/Shayan86/status/1904550722831589618#m
That Senator John Cornyn is still an utter moron.
tobie
What other convos are these clowns having on Signal? Was Witkoff engaged in a second Signal thread on Ukraine while at the Kremlin? These guys are such incompetent amateurs. I read somewhere that an intelligence operative was named in the Signal chat regarding Yemen. Yet Gabbard has the nerve to say under oath that no “intelligence equities” were jeopardized in the chat? I cannot hate these people enough for their rank dishonesty, bluster, and incompetence.
(Okay, I’m repeating myself in my fury. Sorry.)
Jay
@Geminid:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Prosperity_Guardian
There are a “few” members on that list currently being insulted and attacked by Couchfucker McGee and DJTdiot.
rikyrah
Almost like conducting NATIONAL SECURITY ON A PHUCKING APP IS CRAZY!!
And, that most people, in their guts, understand it.
IFFF this had happened under Biden?
It would be the only thing that the MSM would be discussing.
Instead of trying to sane-wash this NATIONAL SECURITY BREACH!
Mainly because, I suspect, the MSM hopes that there is another time…so that they can write it in a phucking book.
Rusty
The next step for the Republicans will be to repeal the Freedom of Information Act (or more likely “reform” it to the point of uselessness.). I’m betting g we will see a number of changes to their behavior is no longer illegal.
Old School
Shalimar
@tobie: I think there are pretty good odds that all of Witkoff’s communications with Washington for instructions and to give reports on his progress have been on Signal. They do not want to keep a record of any of this that could get them in trouble later.
Old School
Basically, “Hoax! And Trump is great!”
tobie
@Shalimar: I agree with you. I was just hoping someone would ask today what other military, foreign policy and/or national security issues are being discussed on Signal. If one of the members of the security apparatus testifying equivocated, a Senator would be in her right to demand a report on this by Friday. This admin is sinister because it has no principles. Everything’s for sale. I have a feeling we’re coming face to face with the banality of evil yet again.
Martin
So, we could not use signal at work, not because it was necessarily insecure, but because it was inaccessible to my employer to review the contents of conversations, to assess it’s security, to ask the organization to terminate accounts, and so on.
Everything we did needed to be auditable. Everything we did that might produce something of value, needed to be able to be accessed by my employer in the case that, I dunno, I got murdered halfway through the conversation. Some of these policies were just common sense by my employer, but some were extensions of contract requirements by federal agencies like DOD and DOE that the organization embraced for the very reasons that DOD and DOE put them out there.
That doesn’t mean we couldn’t in theory use Signal, but my employer would have to make that determination that Signal provided the necessary requirements to my employer. So I could use Google Drive but not One Drive, because if I dropped dead or quit suddenly, my employer could get back the work I stored in there – an agreement they had with Google but did not (until pretty much the moment I retired) with Microsoft, etc.
So how do US counterintelligence units review this communication which they would have no access to? How does Congress provide oversight to this communication which they would have no access to. Why are these assholes hiding their work from the federal government and federal oversight. That’s the criminal part, not the including Goldberg to the chat, which can at least be cleaned up.
John S.
Time for some Democracy rallies.
Throw them out. Lock them up.
WaterGirl
@Leto: I would also be feeding us false information to confirm the lack of trustworthy-ness, and provide data for the trials to come later.
Martin
@Old School: (For general knowledge) So, the good news on something like this is that if you have an end to end encrypted protocol, you can run it over an insecure network with relative safety. It’s relative because the one thing you generally cannot encrypt over such networks are the address endpoints. Think of the mail – you can put your letter to grandma in a privacy envelope and trust that the USPS laws on opening mail holds, but you have to put grandmas address in plain text on the outside for anyone to know how to route that letter. And she’s going to have to put yours on the outside for any return. So if you are able to monitor unencrypted Starlink communications, you may not be able to unencrypted the contents of the message, but you can likely determine that this list of high ranking US officials are having a signal communication, as well as get a pretty good read on where they are physically located.
As I understand it, this is the basic process we used to locate bin Laden. We identified a person we knew was in contact with bin Laden, and then we looked at all of the communication that person was doing and narrowed down certain communications that were all going to a single geographic place and concluded that was likely bin Ladens location, and then later added confirmation to that from human intelligence.
This is why metadata collection is valuable to intelligence services.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@TEL:
Lotsa musings over the last week about where to go on the offensive and this one should be #1 for the reasons you list.
It’s a Rovian “hit them at their strength” stragety.
Let’s see if Dem leadership can actually execute. Certainly individuals (like Ossof) are doing their bit at the tactical level.
eclare
@Old School:
Teenagers (especially girls) are more cautious about who is added to group chats.
Martin
@Scout211: I have my disagreements with Goldbergs politics, but he’s a pretty unimpeachable actor, IMO. He’s always struck me as a serious, honest, thoughtful guy. It will be an interesting test of our media who comes to his defense. I’m not optimistic.
Jay
It’s as bad a breach as when DJTdiot’s Ukraine Working Group included that ruZZian hooker in their zoom meetings.//
WTFGhost
@Old School: The thing that bothers me about the Trump administration is, they might think “security through obscurity” exists.
Like, “why would (Russia/NK/China) monitor these random e-mail accounts?”
And it’s like, dude, when one of you went to Russia, that probability climbed to close to 100%, and that’s if you had a pretty secure phone. I hate smart phones.
Um. I grew up where the Internet was USENET and e-mail, and FTP, and security was a lot easier, if you didn’t do much, which I didn’t. After time, USENET started munging e-mail addresses, to avoid harvesting of OMG our E-MAIL ADDRESS – even though we gave it out freely if we visited an anonymous FTP site, or if we ordered merch from someone conducting OMG COMMERCE through THE INTERNET!!!!
I have a visceral hatred of cell phones, which would reveal to the world that I love wrestling BBWs in giant ice cream floats, but… the root beer (not the ice cream!) must be lo-cal.
I mean, lo-cal is embarrassing. In context, I mean.
So, yeah, I hate smart phones. For me, a faraday cage around a tablet, using a dumb phone to make a network connection over a VPN, through which I would conduct business as long as I didn’t leave the country. And they call me paranoid. HAH!
(What? I didn’t say they were wrong, I just said “HAH!”)
eclare
@Martin:
Yep, that is the more important aspect. I wonder what discussions are now permanently gone post Jan 20? I assume I’m not the only one wondering.
Jay
Will WhiskyLeaks have any legs?
Jeffro
“I didn’t realize it would eat MY…”
-face
-business
-mom’s Social Security
-buddy’s VA benefits
-kids’ immune systems/health
-wife’s job at US AID
-neighbors on a plane to El Salvador
lather, rinse, repeat
I welcome their outrage but I do have to ask: what exactly did they think they were going to get when re-hiring Mr. Perfect Storm of Stupidity, Malice, and Corruption?
Redshift
@Bill Arnold: Exactly. Even if Signal isn’t compromised, an encrypted channel doesn’t help if it’s connected to a likely Russian-compromised device.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@eclare: I saw a post from Chris Hayes saying his 13yo daughter asked him what was going on. When he explained, she was horrified. She knew exactly how bad it was to have the wrong person added to the chat.
Captain C
@Jeffro:
A white guy.
Baud
@Captain C:
Ding ding ding.
schrodingers_cat
@Scout211: Up next. One of the purity left publications or podcasts will call Goldberg a Zionist and try to change the conversation.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: A white guy who would put the undesirables in their place, unlike the previous white guy who was too old. No one is discussing the President’s age anymore. Not Ezra Klein or the late night comedians nor George Clooney or Stephen King.
We are in this mess because the respectable white people in the media were also
rootingpining away for the Orange One.Baud
More video.
Jay
@schrodingers_cat:
No, they will attack him for releasing the information “wrong”,
he should have sent it to ruZZia so they could send it to WikiLeaks.
Redshift
@cmorenc:
And, as I think Josh Marshall pointed out, to evade discovery in legal cases.
Craig
@JoyceH: and, not the citizens of the US
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Yes, important point. A white guy who isn’t a race traitor.
WTFGhost
@Martin: Nobody wants to go into that, because everyone important to RPUSA is in on the secret, that the administration uses Signal to avoid auditing and investigation. Otherwise, Congress might be forced to ask “why is there no clear Presidential order?” to the wrong people, and Fox News doesn’t want that to happen… not under oath, at least.
If Joe Biden did this – especially to hide a dark military op – I’d cry real tears, because that SOB had better be going to jail, and who knows, he might even face execution. If he allowed this, a completely off-the-books, no-presidential-order – I think I’d feel even more sick. Because, as you say, we, the United States, need to know what has happened, and be able to audit it and say “you numbskulls made the situation worse!” or, “operation appears successful.”
We need to know if bad guys suddenly moved weapons from a target, and know we need to search for a spy.
We need to know if someone (e.g., Saudis, Israel) paid a bribe to one of the Signal chat members, rather than just noting a very suspicious money transfer that would get Hunter Biden every investigation up to and including a colonoscopy, but IOKIYAR. (I hope I got that right.)
We need to know – and we can’t trust anyone. It’s not that we can’t trust THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION (dum dum DAAAAAAH). It’s that we can’t trust the Biden, Obama, W, Clinton, HW, Reagan, Carter, Ford, or Nixon administrations, nor the next administration. We can’t trust them to be *right* – that their operation is the right thing to do. We can’t trust them not to commit crimes. Hell – as they say of “illegals” (their word, not mine!), “they’ve already committed crimes, just by being here,” and, so, too, is every member of the Trump administration who participated in this op.
They should have resigned, rather than agreed to do it.
Only thing I’m more paranoid about than smart phones is people in power with no accountability. At least you can stomp on your smartphone.
Jeffro
YOWCH
now that was spot-on
eclare
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
That’s where I got it! I should have added attribution. Thanks for the correction!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@eclare: It made me laugh. You can see how a teenager would have experience.
Barry
@eclare:
“Teenagers (especially girls) are more cautious about who is added to group chats.”
Teenagers by now understand that there could be consequences.
WTFGhost
@Scout211: One thing that’s important to note: unless it has changed, the Pentagon Papers decision said that, yes, a journalist is allowed to publish whatever comes into their hands via lawful means, even if they know the procurement was unlawful (because national security meant something back then, donchaknow – the Pentagon Papers were classified!).
Unless and until the SCOTUS steps in, Goldberg has every right to release what was handed to him, so, any federal action against him should fail at the summary judgment stage – except, you know, lots of Republican judges and justices now.
Sigh. Does anyone else ever get the semi-joking feeling of “by all that’s holy, I wanted to grow *more* conservative as I grew older, not more intensely interested in the vital need for First Amendment protections, unionization, government transparency, the need to re-regulate and and and…
At least I can still complain about that crazy music kids today are playing like, um, uh… Beyonce, I know she sings, Adele, that was a pun on “a Dell,” and, um… razzafrazzaUnfairUniverseCan’tEvenComplain AboutTheMusicgrumblerumble.
WTFGhost
“Burma Shave”
eclare
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
My old school (early 80’s) version of group chats: passed notes. You did not want the wrong girl to see them.
gvg
@SpaceUnit: Yeah they do. Because the US idiots are too stupid to understand what they read or are told, especially nuance and because they don’t understand what orders can’t or won’t be obeyed. They are also liars who are conditioned to tell their superiors AND whomever they are conning whatever they think they want to hear, so the Russians can’t believe them. It does not mitigate the damage, but it is something.
Maybe the Russians are stupid enough to believe them. I wouldn’t.
Martin
@WTFGhost: I don’t think it’s that clear cut. You cannot knowingly share national security secrets (note, this is different than ‘what is classified’). Now, that creates a kind of chicken/egg situation in that the government needs to identify that information as a national security secret, and right now the administration is being extraordinarily cagey about that, and Jeffrey could go and publish that and the Trump admin says ‘we told you those were national security secrets in a Signal convo’ and what the fuck are judges supposed to do with that?
There is no solid ground to stand on anywhere. And that’s the problem.
gvg
@WaterGirl: Yep.
And I bet smart American real intelligence people already suspect or even EXPECT that to happen and therefore are looking at anything we do get from now on and wondering if it’s real or fake or a test. Which would make it a problem for them in planning operations.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Martin:
I would think the Courts would tell the Feds to prove it, that this was done in the Signal thread
RaflW
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I know a lot is fucked up right now, but if the gov’t officials were giving sworn testimony in that Senate hearing this morning, I’d hope that the first point in a lawyer filing defending Goldberg is direct quotes from, say, the DNI saying into a Senate record that the chat didn’t contain classified information.
Jay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
And of course, there is 2 hours of Admin figures, testifying under oath to Congress, over and over again, “NO SECRETS! NO SECRETS!” on camera.
RaflW
Also really love this explanation of how bonkers it is that JG got added and no one noticed!
Written by Professor Amanda Gailey:
gvg
@Redshift: Evidence of something to hide. When someone takes certain actions over and over, it means something.
Trump hired officials, and before that Bush republicans keep getting caught using things that delete records. Look at Trump tearing up documents and the records service having to put them back together all through his term, plus all the prior officials caught using aps like this last time (just not doing war planning) Romney buying servers, Bush deleting emails….Republicans saying Nixon should have burned the tapes. Its been getting worse. And stupider.
I happen to think the Supreme Court ruling on bribery that narrows the definition into nonsense is pretty much a confession that the majority of that court have taken what I still consider bribes. I think people should be saying this loudly “look, they are admitting to taking bribes, thats why they are changing the law” “They are crooks, the ones that voted for this” “It’s a confession”
WTFGhost
Well, first, I’m not a lawyer. And this is very much a case where you have as much justice as you can afford. If you are a lawyer, scold me gently, I was/am reporting my understanding :-).
But I was told the Pentagon Papers case said that, yes, a journalist could reveal information that’s classified, so long as it was put in their hands through lawful means, and there’s probably a lot of caselaw about what constitutes lawful means.
Regardless of all that caselaw, this situation is almost vacuously lawful. A member of the Trump administration voluntarily added him to a chat. Mistake or no, Goldberg had a right to keep watching to see if he was being trolled, or if this meant something.
From what I’ve heard, he’s done what any responsible, patriotic journalist would do – reveal enough to ensure people could see there was a massive screw-up, plus many violations of many laws, and hold back the rest, not because he had to, but because, c’mon, man, who the eff would just blab this kind of stuff?
If the feds wanted to punish him, they might do better siccing the IRS on him, than to try to try to trump up charges.
(Young folks today need to remember, “trumped up charges” predates Trump’s entry to politics, when he ran for the reform party. “Honest to goodness, pinkie swear, cross my heart and hope to die, that is not where ‘trump up charges’ come from, but that is a really good guess!” You’ll need to tell your grandchildren. Don’t worry – that ugly fact will die off in one additional generation, and forevermore after that, people will be sure that “trumped up charges” refers to the former, shamed, seriously shamed, we replaced the tombstone with the gold plated toilet to deal with the feces, shamed, president.)
WTFGhost
@RaflW: That does raise the possibility that they were so sure that Goldberg would do something wrong, that they never considered the possibility he’s an ethical journalist.
That is *not* surprising behavior from evil people – they stop being able to think like good people, just like good people need to be reminded to think like criminals.
Jay
@WTFGhost:
That is some 11th dimension chess, and kinda ignores the fact that if there were classified information in the group chat, (there was), everybody in the group chat, is guilty of leaking classified information, except Jeffery Goldberg, because he has not published or revealed the classified information from the group chat.
It is easier to go with the Trump’s Razor,….. yes, they are morons.
cmorenc
@Redshift: Recall that among the early Trump Administration moves was firing the respective Judge Advocate General for each of the service branches – a key part of the JAG head’s role was to determine the legality of any use of or action by the military. That was precisely to help shield the Administration’s ambitions to use the military e.g. rounding up people who are undocumented or whom the Administration otherwise wishes to expel, or for whatever foreign military adventures they wish to pursue.
Bill Arnold
@RaflW:
Also, Signal group members can view the group membership. In this case it was said to be 18, which is large (high probability of >0 device compromises because of the people involved) but reviewable.
Any time I am on a work Zoom/Teams/Google Meet videoconference, I check (1) who is connected (2) who was invited.
This is just basic self-defense, not even security. Depending on the audience, things might or might not get said, or said differently.
They Call Me Noni
@RaflW:
Wow.
Martin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): And the feds would stonewall as they have all along, until the courts fold. Again, how many divisions does John Roberts have?
catclub
@SpaceUnit:
I assume that Jeff Goldberg was not the only journalist included in the chat.
RevRick
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: In the hit them at their strength strategy, Wisconsin citizens seem to be more than willing to clobber them. Early voting is up 48% over the same period in 2023, when the liberal justice won in a landslide.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Martin:
The courts can deputize officers of the court and make arrests if court orders aren’t followed and/or the US Marshals don’t follow their orders
catclub
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I think the FBI will come down on Goldberg like a ton of bricks, whether he does that release or not. Can you afford $2M in legal fees over the next three years?
Jay
@Martin:
Jeffery Goldberg has, by now, multiple copies of the group chat, on multiple platforms.
They could charge him, they could harass him, but,
a Judge would immediately dismiss, based on over 2 hours of Admin Officials yelling No Secrets under sworn oath on camera,
and DJTdiot’s want this out of the news ASAP.
Jay
@catclub:
see the comment below.
Martin
@WTFGhost: You’re accounting of that isn’t wrong. My addition here is that there is this entirely separate thing involving sharing national security information which is completely orthogonal to the classified information stuff (which is an administrative mechanism to compartmentalize information and really doesn’t have application outside of government). And some of these laws are new, post 9/11 stuff.
In this space, the government deems some information to be nationally security sensitive. This information need not have originated with the government – it could be industry data, or trade secrets, or financial information, etc. But the government becomes aware of it and says ‘this has national security implications, you can’t share it’. It’s not classified, because it’s not a product of the government, but it’s still illegal to share. You have no way of knowing that it can’t be shared until the government says so, so there should be an evidence chain when the feds inform you (like a subpoena) that information is now privileged.
Note the testimony today. Everyone said nothing in the Signal convo was classified. That’s a legal statement. Nothing in the convo was classified because classifying something is an administrative act. It is something that happens after the fact. That’s not the same thing as saying ‘the information in the Signal conversation is protected national security and cannot be shared’. That’s a totally different thing, and the feds can go to Jeffrey Goldberg and say ‘everything you read in that conversation is protected and cannot be shared’ and he would be legally bound to not share it. All indication are that hasn’t yet happened, and given the proclivity of this administration to lying about basic demonstrable things like whether Trump signed an EO activating the Alien Enemies Act or not, I don’t know how even the judges could trust whether that happened or not, since the courts are having to rely on affidavits here.
This is a continuation of the problem we’ve been talking about for some time here, which is that a lot of people are assuming a functioning administrative system when no such functioning system exists. It just doesn’t. Judges aren’t going to hold the administration accountable because they simply don’t have the mechanisms to do that, and the administration knows that. So judges are, at best, doing their best, and performing the only remaining job – convincing the public that they are doing all they can in the hopes we don’t burn down their house and chop off their heads when they know that the system of checks and balances has stopped functioning.
This belief that the system will self-correct is at this point delusional. It’s been in this state for quite a while now, yet people keep holding onto the notion that ‘surely the judges will hold the line’. No, that’s long gone. Congress’s check is long gone. The executive can say whatever they want, courts will make a show of that – don’t get me wrong, most likely in good faith – but it becomes a stochastic game at this point. The judges that want to hold Trump accountable cannot, and everyone knows that. The judges that want to suck up to Trump will hold Goldberg accountable, because they can still do that. And so there’s little risk to play this game in this way – you might win with the right judge, and you can’t lose with any judge.
Martin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The courts are fully aware how a deputized officer would fare trying to execute an arrest warrant for a US Attorney who does have the full backing of the Atty General who does control the entire US Marshals. This is not a functional plan, this is a political plan, with an uncertain outcome. It’s risky.
Martin
@Jay: You say a judge ‘would’. You mean to say a judge ‘should’. Trump should be in prison right now, but he’s not. Judges should have stopped his numerous legal violations since taking office, but they haven’t. And there are some judges that we know would not do those things, even though they should.
So even if the judge dismisses the charges, what’s stopping the administration from keeping him in custody? We have sent people with US legal status to an El Salvador work camp and judges have NO ability to undo that. Zero. The only thing stopping Kash Patel from disappearing Jeffrey Goldberg is the charity of this administration. That’s all. They likely will see that kind of step not in their best interests to do, but that’s still a charitable act. It’s not an act that they are externally bound by. And that’s the problem. And that’s the thing a LOT of democrats aren’t yet grasping.
Jay
@Martin:
They can try, the problems is, the Houthi Working Group invited him into the chat, with no caveats, shared “National Security Sensitive”, (maybe) with him, and according to him, actual “Classified Information”, which he has not yet released.
The only way they get this in front of a Judge, even a FISA Judge, is if they charge everybody else in the group chat with the same charges, or more, because while Jeffery may have revealed “National Security Sensitive” information, (with out being aware, ie. Horse has left the Barn, aka Retroactive Classification) the other members of the Group Chat revealed actual Classified Information, and he has the receipts, which he has probably shared with some trusted others.
Arrest him, disappear him, that leaked “actual” Classified Information goes public, and WhiskeyGate is back on all the front pages.
And, there will be no “harassment” because the DJTdiot crew want this all to fade into yesterdays news, and the only way to do that right now, is to start a war.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Martin:
Then deputize many multiple people with firearms/combat experience to arrest these people
stinger
@JoyceH:
And yet it will never be known to us, as it can’t be FOIA’d.
Jay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I am certain that the John Brown Gun Club(s)* would love, love, love to be deputized.
*Antifa, LBGTQA2+ etc.
Noskilz
I get the impression there isn’t a sincere bone in Vance’s body – it wouldn’t surprise me at all if his anti-Europe ravings are just what he imagines it takes to endear himself to his current crop of marks.
If that is the case, I’d consider that kind of morally bankrupt toadying even worse than someone who sincerely believed such a thing – that person might just be ignorant or misinformed, but someone who viciously cheerleads for bad position they don’t even believe in is the worst sort of person.
With any luck, his blatant insincerity towards everyone will one day mean he will be abandoned by all.
I do hope Vance will never be able to go anywhere on the planet without having to look over his shoulder or wondering if that meal he ordered is quite as it should be.
Betty
@A Ghost to Most: My brother has an in-law who is a devotee of the extreme National Apostolic Reformation and she continues to approve of all the madness. She described the DOGE actions as needed surgery to cure the patient. Yikes!
Jay
@stinger:
We will know everything,……………………
In 4 years, when the books come out.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Jeffro: they thought they would get the Collapse of Society, which they assumed meant Anya Taylor-Joy in skimpy bondage gear, souped-up, pimped-out off-road vehicles, and open carry everywhere.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@schrodingers_cat: I bet this is exactly what will happen.
Bill Arnold
@Jay:
Signal is somewhat resistant to copying of a whole group chat, though can be done post by post, or with screencaps.
Can be done easily with Signal desktop (in Linux at least), though, with a package called sigtop.
Jay
@Bill Arnold:
or just screenshots of his phone from another device, which is what we have so far.
Paul in KY
@TEL: We need to hang this around his yellow/orange neck every fucking day!
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: Give it a rest. Jeezus.
Paul in KY
@WTFGhost: I think the idiot who added him thought ‘JG’ stood for the Joint Chief or something like that.