Y’all will be shocked to hear that Trump’s Signal Corps lied under oath to a Congressional committee yesterday and lied to reporters when they insisted they didn’t discuss military attack plans on an unsecure commercial app that they’re using for the sole purpose of evading government records requirements and accountability. Some excerpts from a new story in The Atlantic:
Yesterday, we asked officials across the Trump administration if they objected to us publishing the full texts… We sent our first request for comment and feedback to national-security officials shortly after noon, and followed up in the evening after most failed to answer.
Late yesterday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt emailed a response: “As we have repeatedly stated, there was no classified information transmitted in the group chat. However, as the CIA Director and National Security Advisor have both expressed today, that does not mean we encourage the release of the conversation. This was intended to be a an [sic] internal and private deliberation amongst high-level senior staff and sensitive information was discussed. So for those reason [sic] — yes, we object to the release.”
An aside: Leavitt is a blithering idiot who wouldn’t last three days flacking for a mid-sized regional shoe repair concern.
Anyhoo, The Atlantic published the entire Signal conversation except the name of John Ratcliffe’s chief of staff. They redacted that name as a courtesy, even though Ratcliffe is a bald-faced liar who impugned the magazine and its editor while lying to a Congressional committee. It’s pretty damning stuff:
At 11:44 a.m. eastern time, Hegseth posted in the chat, in all caps, “TEAM UPDATE:”
The text beneath this began, “TIME NOW (1144et): Weather is FAVORABLE. Just CONFIRMED w/CENTCOM we are a GO for mission launch.” Centcom, or Central Command, is the military’s combatant command for the Middle East. The Hegseth text continues:
“1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package)”
“1345: ‘Trigger Based’ F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME – also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s)”Let us pause here for a moment to underscore a point. This Signal message shows that the U.S. secretary of defense texted a group that included a phone number unknown to him—Goldberg’s cellphone—at 11:44 a.m. This was 31 minutes before the first U.S. warplanes launched, and two hours and one minute before the beginning of a period in which a primary target, the Houthi “Target Terrorist,” was expected to be killed by these American aircraft. If this text had been received by someone hostile to American interests—or someone merely indiscreet, and with access to social media—the Houthis would have had time to prepare for what was meant to be a surprise attack on their strongholds. The consequences for American pilots could have been catastrophic.
The Hegseth text then continued:
“1410: More F-18s LAUNCH (2nd strike package)”
“1415: Strike Drones on Target (THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP, pending earlier ‘Trigger Based’ targets)”
“1536 F-18 2nd Strike Starts – also, first sea-based Tomahawks launched.”
“MORE TO FOLLOW (per timeline)”
“We are currently clean on OPSEC”—that is, operational security.
“Godspeed to our Warriors.”
The Atlantic also revealed that Hegseth further blabbed plans for more attacks that evening.
Look, these are “war plans” and “classified information” by any reasonable definition. So, not only did these fucking clowns endanger American servicemembers during that operation while illegally evading recordkeeping requirements, they lied about it to Congress. I’m not a lawyer, but I think that’s a crime?
As a result, I’ve added some new talking points for the weekly phone calls to my shitty Republican reps: Demand the immediate resignation of Hegseth, Waltz and Gabbard or stop claiming you give a shit about the troops.
Is that pointless? Probably.
But the Trump Signal Corps’ epic fuckup is significant for at least a couple of reasons: 1) A journalist is at the center of the story, so the mainstream press might be tempted to stay on it longer than they have other scandalous Trump fuckups, and 2) The facts are incredibly damning and easy for anyone to understand.
Remember how a Hemingway character described going bankrupt — gradually and then all at once? Sometimes the same is true of public opinion, and we need public opinion to shift so we can give these incompetent and malevolent shitheads the electoral beat-down they so richly deserve.
Open thread.
Quinerly
And still lying. Under oath this AM.
twbrandt
Maxwell Smart was brighter than these idiots.
Quinerly
Related.
https://www.axios.com/2025/03/26/signal-lawsuit-judge-trump-deportation-flights
dmsilev
Irony wept.
ArchTeryx
@dmsilev: Irony got shot dead and cremated during the W years. It hasn’t been seen since.
Doug R
Although as a Canadian it does give me hope in that if they have actual invasion plans, we’d hear about it well in advance.
#fiveeyes #csis
rikyrah
Outside of the NATIONAL SECURITY BREACH…
The second part of this is that they were using a PHUCKING APP BECAUSE THEY WANT TO GET AROUND THE FEDERAL RECORDS ACT.
Old School
Via Pitchbot:
West of the Rockies
The only negative to this story (deservedly) becoming huge is that it reduces the heat and attention the heinous Muskrat was receiving.
They Call Me Noni
Can you just imagine how the pilots (and their families) involved are reacting to this?
MazeDancer
“I don’t recall” a complete listing of times, places, and F-16s outlined from 10 days ago.
Wag
@West of the Rockies: … or it further amplifies the overall incompetence of the entire administration.
Professor Bigfoot
Tsk, tsk, tsk… Talk about “Didn’t Earn It.”
DEI For White Guys.
stinger
Leavitt: “that does not mean we encourage the release of the conversation” AND “we object to the release.”
Good grief — you’re only supposed to pick ONE of the bullet point options from the template, idiot.
cope
There’s also the layer of the scandal (that word apparently doesn’t mean what it used to) that considers WHY Signal was used in terms of circumventing national records laws and the layer below that described by Josh Marshall yesterday:
But I’ve learned there’s another level of the scandal: the DOD recently sent around an “OPSEC SPECIAL BULLETIN” specifically warning about a new Signal exploit using a phishing-like strategy to add ‘linked devices’ to Signal communications and thus listen in on encrypted messages. The bulletin specifically notes the use by “Russian professional hacking groups.”
As I recall, one of the participants in the chat was actually in Moscow at the time
ETA: I see rikyrah made my first observation while I was pecking away.
Mike in Pasadena
@They Call Me Noni: The pilots and their families are so ate up with tumpty dumpty that they will deny anything is wrong.
Hegseth and the rest of them on this Signal chat were DEI hires for stupid people. Hire the mentally impaired for national security positions.
Hoodie
Looks like JD got banished to Greenland for his remarks about Trump decision to bomb Yemen. Canceled Usha’s original visit to Nuuk and dogsled race, now they’re going to the old Thule airbase, above the arctic circle and in the middle of fucking nowhere (even for Greenland). Less danger of running into smartass Greenlanders there.
Harrison Wesley
Was there any legal authority for these strikes to begin with?
rikyrah
After reading the latest drop from The Atlantic…yeah. those phuckers at the NYT would never have let us know in real time what happened.
kindness
It’s going to come down to how the MSM plays it out. Maga normies don’t have a problem with Trump breaking the law. They’re fine with a dictator so long as it’s their dictator. The Media though? I mean, they are the one’s who define this stuff to Ma & Pa Normie who don’t really want to pay attention to politics. I wish the Media would understand they are under attack with this administration too and start to act like it. Too much of the media has gone Vichy thinking it’ll save them. It won’t.
Hoodie
@cope: these dopes are probably using signal on compromised devices, which is an obvious way to eavesdrop on their conversations. I remember the days when I worked for a major defense contractor and the first thing drilled in our heads was that no line in the metro DC area outside of a SCIF was safe.
rattlemullet
I am a long time lurker 2007 I believe, over the years Betty Cracker, a fellow Floridian, has been spot on with her all her commentary. Your writings I have enjoyed for years. To quote Lowell George “eloquent profanity rolls right off my tongue.” BJ is one of 4 blogs that I got to everyday.
Let me say thank you John Cole for the incredible team of front pagers.
cope
Curiously, I’m not finding any kind of news or speculation about why Jeffrey Goldberg was included in the chat. Is there someone involved in this clown car crashing into a flaming dumpster event with a similar name?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@kindness: The media does know it’s under attack. They’re reacting by giving in.
tam1MI
@cope: Apparently there was someone with the initials JG who was supposed to be looped in.
cmorenc
@West of the Rockies: the foul-ups muskrat is causing at the Social Security Administration is nearing the threshold where people not receiving their earned benefits will reach enough critical mass to throw a hot klieg-light back on Musk soon enough.
prostratedragon
In the hearing just now:
And get a load of those placards. It’s like the Ides of March.
cmorenc
@rikyrah: yep – Maggie and Woodward would have saved the info for their next book next year, and we would have not even had any hints about it until they obliquely mentioned months later that the forthcoming book contained some sort of bombshell as a promotional teaser.
Captain C
@rikyrah: I still don’t know why withholding timely, important news from one’s newspaper/journalistic outlet so one can publish it several years later in a book isn’t a firing offense for the reporter. And if the editor is OK with that, why it’s not a firing offense for the editor as well.
lowtechcyclist
@Professor Bigfoot:
Yep, affirmative action hires.
Captain C
@prostratedragon: Her best case scenario here is that she’s too incompetent, apathetic, and uncaring to do her job.
ArchTeryx
@Captain C: Because it’s what the owners of the paper want. SATSQ.
They sit on the story past it’s political expiration date, they get to publish their books. That’s the deal, it seems, at FTFNYT.
bbleh
@Old School: even if you grant that — hey, same initials, honest mistake! happens all the time — it raises the question, how often DO you use unclassified apps to discuss classified information?
Also noting for the record Dem WIN in PA Senate special election district 36, which the Orange Idiot won by 15 points. Apparently the central PA agricultural community are not enamored of Mr Musk.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
My brother, who has never been a Trump voter but, as a white suburban dad, has been Republican-curious, has been texting me parodies of this floating around the web, in which German reporters join the texts for Operation Overlord, in which the recipient can “txt STOP to opt out of war plan updates,” etc.
Unlike economics (math is hard!) and the overt racism (stop whining snowflakes) this is something that, FSM-willing, seems to be hitting home with white guys.
stinger
@cope: That was my thought too, that his name is similar to someone they intended to be on the call.
schrodingers_cat
Testing
cope
@tam1MI: I thought maybe it was something like that, thanks.
They Call Me Noni
@Mike in Pasadena:
Veterans are becoming increasingly aware and speaking out about having their care and benefits mucked around with. I would think that this latest “to the bat poles” moment would have a cumulative effect on the military.
But I also thought Congress would impeach after J6 so there’s that.
Old School
@They Call Me Noni:
Mrs. School was telling me about a TikTok(?) she saw from the wife of a soldier in Yemen who was absolutely furious.
So I’d guess they aren’t happy.
prostratedragon
Some have called this perfect:
Jackie
BREAKING NEWS per CNN: Supreme Court upholds Biden rule requiring serial numbers, background checks for ghost guns
No link, yet
They Call Me Noni
@Jackie:
Be still my beating heart.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: Makes you appreciate real media, doesn’t it?
cmorenc
@Jackie: The ghost gun teg decision was 7-2. Guess who the 2 dissenters were (hint: this is not a trick question where either is a surprise).
WaterGirl
@kindness: Most of the media is too busy complying in advance, lest they lose their coveted positions. Fuck them.
West of the Rockies
@Chacal Charles Calthrop:
Yup. All Meal Team 6 armchair war historian white guys will be opining on the proper way to conduct an air raid on a foreign country. This story absolutely has their attention. Tis to laugh!
prostratedragon
@prostratedragon:
It’s this lawsuit; archive.ph link.
MattF
@cmorenc: And the opinion was written by Gorsuch.
JML
I think BC’s point that there’s a media member in the center of this scandal for why it may have more legs is a good one (even if it is kind of gross that it is this way). If they had accidentally looped in a Democrat, suddenly it would all be politics as usual, blah blah blah blame the Democrat for not announcing themselves and/or stepping out, etc. But since it’s one of their own, they might actually show some ducking spine.
but this is actually a fairly big deal. The Grifting Team really effed up here: showed they were inexperienced, incompetent, and dangerously sloppy to the point of criminality. Hopefully the media can stay on this long enough to not let it all pass by with the usual “meh, who cares” Bee Ess that they always let the Current Occupant and his Crew off the hook with.
The double standards are unbelievable. If Biden’s team had done something like this, the House GOP would have already filed articles of impeachment, and the howler monkeys would have been demanding everyone resign. But IOKIYR…
JML
@cmorenc: I haven’t looked at it yet, so I’m assuming it’s Alito and Thomas.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Why was Heglessbottom telling that Signal group in real time the planes were taking off? My understanding this security stuff works on do the people involved need to know. I would argue the whole point of that Signal group was so they could brag to each other.
A Ghost to Most
Sometimes, it feels like we are battling Killer Clowns from Space.
WaterGirl
@Jackie: Great news on ghost guns.
WaterGirl
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Why? To show everyone how important he is, and to show everyone how important THEY are. Ego stroking.
Harrison Wesley
If this operation was supposed to send a message to Iran, I’m sure it did. Perhaps not the intended one, though.
TS
And while this is happening
https://wapo.st/4kWM5Zb (gift link)
prostratedragon
“How John Roberts Has Empowered a Lawless Presidency”
Scout211
Back in the Stone Age when I was in high school, my US History teacher (white haired lady who seemed a million years old to me at the time) lectured us about the Francis Gary Powers incident and told us something that we all puzzled over. She said the government protocol when embarrassing or illegal incidents occur is “never deny it unless it’s true.”
Fast forward decades later and they still are trying to do this but with all the ways that communications are different and so much more sophisticated on so many levels, it isn’t the government being coy anymore, it’s a clown show. But Trump seems to prefer the clown show over admitting blame on anything. And he expects his underlings to do the same.
What a clown show.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Why not? It has worked for him so far. [sort of snark, but also I think this explains it.]
Old Man Shadow
@Jackie: Hmm… now for some reason, some of the justices are worried about randos getting guns easily without anyone knowing about it.
I wonder why…
WaterGirl
@TS: Surely that bullshit executive order will be challenged in court.
Betty Cracker
@TS: Is anyone keeping a count of EOs? This has got to be some sort of record, right?
This particular edict is intended to federalize elections, I suppose. I’m no constitutional scholar, but I’m pretty sure this directly contradicts it?
My faith in the current SCOTUS is at about the same level as my confidence Hegseth’s ability to competently manage the military. But I don’t think even the FedSoc Six will uphold that nonsense, excepting Alito and Thomas, i.e., the Qanon Caucus.
kindness
@WaterGirl: Like I said. Much of the media has gone Vichy
@A Ghost to Most: I never had considered that the movie Idiocracy was a documentary.
Old Man Shadow
@TS: Despite what he thinks, Executive orders are not kingly proclamations across the land.
They’re glorified fucking memos to the executive branch.
States are under no obligation to do shit.
Old School
Shorter NPR: “We promise to bend the knee.”
Old Man Shadow
@WaterGirl: ACLU is already on it. I should give them some money.
stinger
Is there a list of the people who were on that Signal chat? I’m wondering because we are dropping bombs on a foreign country with whom we are not at war. Congress declares war. So were any members of Congress on that chat, or only members of the administration (and one reporter)?
I know nobody cares about the Constitution any more, but looping in a senator or congperson could allow the administration to claim they are keeping Congress advised. Not that Congress would make a formal declaration of war anyway. They’re basically only good for naming post offices–until such time as they can shut down the USPS–and cutting billionaires’ taxes.
Betty Cracker
@rattlemullet: You are kind to say so, thanks.
Scamp Dog
@rattlemullet: What are the other three blogs you read?
Captain C
@ArchTeryx: “We’re the Paper of Record, even if we omit important things from the record until its too late to do any good because it suits the Sulzbergers’ and Joe Kahn’s interests.”
clay
@TS: The President doesn’t run elections. There’s nothing preventing any and all state/local election boards from using that EO as birdcage liner.
Captain C
@cmorenc: Scam “17th Century Witchhunters are perfectly cromulent sources for my legal opinions” Alito and Clarence “RV” Thomas?
YY_Sima Qian
Global geopolitical tectonic plates continue to shift. The last time the PRC, Japan & SK sought rapprochement was during the Trump 45 term, even though the unreconstructed reactionary Shinzo Abe was Prime Minister of Japan, & had worked to manage Trump, too.
Pushback by Biden against transnational repression, & Trump brandishing tariffs, has Modi hedging his options.
Meanwhile, any Sino-EU rapprochement will not necessarily be smooth sailing. Too much bad blood from the Biden years: the PRC’s ongoing support of Russia as the latter continues its re-invasion of Ukraine, the EU partially aligning w/ Biden on the tech war against the PRC, & on top of that the “2nd China Shock” threatening European industries. (Worth reading Finbarr Bermingham’s thread in full.)
Of course, there are more & deeper bad blood in the Sino-Indian relations & the Sino-Japanese-Korean triangle to overcome, but naked MAGA imperialism is a powerful forcing function.
ARoomWithAMoose
@Betty Cracker: Pretty sure eligibility to vote (and the list of required documentation) is left to the state in question, that’s the gap the GOP has driven Jim Crow 2.0 through in places like Florida.
FFOTUS has been signing all sorts of EOs where there is no constitutional power for the executive or legislative delegation of such.
They Call Me Noni
@stinger:
Not in any of the reporting I’m seeing.
cain
@Old School: They will make up for it by following and aggressively following up on this national security event, right?
Steve LaBonne
Of course The Onion is on the SignalGate story.
cain
@stinger:
We’re back to fighting with the middle east like it’s 2002. But this time, with a team that is not remotely smart. Watching us look incompetent repeatedly as they put yes-men in charge will show that we will be weakened to the point of comedy.
Betty Cracker
@ARoomWithAMoose: Our decentralized voting system might be what saves us.
Captain C
@Old School:
Fixed that for her.
rikyrah
PatriotTakes![]()
(@patriottakes) posted at 8:18 AM on Wed, Mar 26, 2025:
According to Michael Walz, Trump wanted to pass the cost of reopening the shipping lanes onto Europe. https://t.co/SLty2zlqOo
(https://x.com/patriottakes/status/1904885723804639735?t=oieu5NQiUrTodopRSSGMoQ&s=03)
cain
@WaterGirl:
What’s there to challenge, the consistution is clear that the President doesn’t run elections. It can be safely ignored, it’s Trump who will have to bring the lawsuit.
Of course, the SCOTUS will have to rule in favor of states here because it’s literally in black and white in the Constitution.
matt
@Old School: ‘Zelensky really failed us by refusing to make up evidence to help Trump’, she added.
Old School
@stinger:
…
rikyrah
The Intellectualist (@highbrow_nobrow) posted at 11:14 AM on Tue, Mar 25, 2025:
“Since you came back into the White House, do you use Signal or any other encrypted apps to communicate with Administration officials?”
Tom Homan: “I have no comment on that.” @HowardMortman
https://t.co/RCdLZENLPu
(https://x.com/highbrow_nobrow/status/1904567525364371694?t=cUwD0kUVkBPXpGLWRPX-YA&s=03)
Redshift
@cope:
Even if there is, that only explains it if the person who did it (Waltz) has Goldberg in their Signal contacts (the only plausible way he could have done it accidentally.)
That means he’s been leaking to Goldberg.
Captain C
@cain:
“Despite what the Constitution appears to say, it’s clear that Trump can do whatever he wants and must be obeyed. This passage from Torquemada shows that…” — Scam Alito
“Trump is Lord. Somebody get me another luxury RV!” –Clarence Thomas
cope
@Redshift: Yes, that’s my take. Not only would the name or initials have to be similar or the same but Goldberg’s number had to be in somebody’s device.
sentient ai from the future
@cain: i think the real danger there is that it might serve as the basis for operatives to challenge votes, regardless of the flimsy rationale, but it might thereby delay official tallies long enough to grab power
Geminid
@twbrandt: This whole Signal screw-up made me think of Mets manager Casey Stengel’s question:
sentient ai from the future
@cope: signal uses aliases as well, no phone number is even necessary these days, i dont think, except as initial verification
Doug R
@stinger: The list is in the Atlantic story.
rikyrah
Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) posted at 10:44 AM on Tue, Mar 25, 2025:
my goodness you can see Tulsi Gabbard trying to come up with evasive answers to Kelly’s questions in real time https://t.co/6PG2V9AFKG
(https://x.com/atrupar/status/1904560131934744652?t=-zinpNHbd6-SY6uT-gXPrQ&s=03)
Llelldorin
@Doug R:
The really important thing is that the Danish Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste and the CSIS have to immediately resume the Whiskey war and begin alternatingly sending Royal Crown and schnapps to Sec. Hegseth until both are added to the Signal chat.
rikyrah
@rikyrah:
YOU DO REALIZE that this means all those muthaphuckas have been doing security breaches all over this phucking app.
rikyrah
Sabrina Singh (@sabrinasingh24) posted at 7:42 AM on Wed, Mar 26, 2025:
Pete Hegseth put the sequencing of the entire operation & types of aircraft that would be used to conduct these strikes all before the operation took place. He put the lives of our fighter pilots at risk.
Details like this are classified. I am absolutely floored. https://t.co/Wvm1ncrwSo
(https://x.com/sabrinasingh24/status/1904876585401930182?t=89pYuAPbBgu44NRHZgk56Q&s=03)
Steve LaBonne
@rikyrah: I assume they are using it in every area of the government, and setting the messages to disappear. They want no track record so there is no danger of accountability.
Steve LaBonne
@cain: Josh Marshall this morning is all over the damn reporters who refuse to understand, or knowingly misrepresent, what an executive order actually is. The “news” media are covering themselves in shit as usual.
rikyrah
Michael Lin, MD PhD![]()
(@michaelzlin) posted at 5:05 PM on Tue, Mar 25, 2025:
Our NIH grant to discover coronavirus antiviral meds was terminated today.
With this grant, we had developed a better SARSCoV2 inhibitor than Paxlovid, and we recently discovered an improved drug that looks better than Pfizer’s own second-generation inhibitor. https://t.co/kzo8OmdF3k
(https://x.com/michaelzlin/status/1904656008787763579?s=02)
rikyrah
Governor JB Pritzker (@GovPritzker) posted at 5:47 PM on Tue, Mar 25, 2025:
Illinois is the nation’s number one soybean producing state — it’s what made us the perfect home for the Soybean Innovation Lab.
Thanks to Donald Trump, the lab will close on April 15.
Innovation lost, jobs lost, and education lost. https://t.co/FohcwiArz6
(https://x.com/GovPritzker/status/1904666415489053114?t=slyo7NVHaLsue-rQz_Sxgw&s=03)
Deputinize America
@rikyrah: Expertise is lame in a world where results are measured by how much someone can profit in a business quarter before walking away and leaving any potential disasters in the rear-view mirror.
Geminid
@cope: This morning’s Politico Playbook had a lot of reporting on “Signalgate” and some of it was pretty funny, especially their account of National Security Advisor Mike Waltz’s first interview since the story broke:
Ingraham kept pushing Waltz in how the leak happened. He assured her:
The Playbook reporter encouraged readers to watch the whole interview and provided a link.
WTFGhost
I’m just wondering if anyone has speculated that these clowns wanted to add Jonah Goldberg, not Jeffrey Goldberg, to the chat. To me, hearing that would make me want to pummel each member of the signal chat, no matter my political leanings, because the big fuss is, Washington DC is in an uproar, not because they added a journalist and sent secret war plans and OPSEC and whatever other fancy-pants words they have for OUR NATION’S SECRETS… but that they added the wrong J Goldberg, when one of them would have covered for them *completely*, hiding their spilling of such data.
Man, I wish I could ask Trump that in an unguarded moment. “Wouldn’t this whole thing have blown over if they’d added Jonah Goldberg, the way they were supposed to?” I mean, he is precisely so stupid he might pull a Jack Nicholson, “You’re goddamned right they added the wrong journalist!”
Old School
Bill Arnold
@cope:
The main reason that classified matters should not be discussed in a large (or any) signal group with well-known members is that non-hardened phones are vulnerable to state level actors, who have the resources to attack the phones of high-level personel. There is a significant (maybe high) probability that at least one phone in the group was compromised by a hostile state actor.
DMCC-S Classified DMCC-S Classified Tablet and PhoneTablet and Phone
The phishing exploit(s) that Russians have devised are interesting, for sure, but are not a crack. Also, linked devices are easily checked for in signal settings.
These people are, as Jay reworded one of my wordy replies (paraphrased) too incompetent to commit crimes successfully. In private enterprise, they, or at least some of them, would be fired as an example to the others.
JoyceH
I’m struck by the membership of the chat. Not a single uniformed officer, all political appointees and almost all of them deeply unqualified. It’s a bunch of mental midgets strutting around cosplaying.
But if someone wants to do some mischief, plant the thought in Trump’s head – they had a group chat and didn’t invite you? Of course it’s usual for government to have groups and messaging that don’t include the big kahuna, but Trump’s paranoia-tinged dementia is coming along nicely so let’s give it a nudge.
sentient ai from the future
@Old School: “misremembered”
reminds me of this gem
https://youtu.be/zXmQW_aqBks
rikyrah
Brian Allen
@allenanalysis
7:26 AM · Mar 26, 2025
·
1.3M
Views
Bill Arnold
@tam1MI:
Sure, but if Mike Waltz genuinely believes that Jeff Goldberg is scum among journalists, why was Jeff Goldberg in his Signal contact list?
tam1MI
There’s an Occam’s Razor answer to this that Mr. Waltz is strenuously trying to lie his way out of. 😉
Doug R
@Llelldorin: “God idé”!
Doug R
@Bill Arnold: The Chief of Staff was IN MOSCOW DURING THE CHAT.
Deputinize America
@Old School: Goldberg never should have withdrawn from the chat – he should have simply taken a vacation to Vietnam or Ecuador and published from there verbatim from the start.
EarthWindFire
@rikyrah: Cowards. Just like all bullies.
Look, since war plans are no longer classified, can we stop pretending to be concerned about Hillary Clinton’s email server? Damn, I crack myself up.
Bill Arnold
@Deputinize America:
Or (have seen this suggested), drop a link to the The Atlantic article into the chat when the article was published.
Captain C
@EarthWindFire: FTFNYT: “Why Hillary’s email scandal was much bigger than the Signal oops, and why we were right to hump the Butter Emails story over everything else”
RandomMonster
You’ll definitely know something is up when the Trump administration claims that Canadian troops seized the Gleiwitz radio station on the US-Canadian border. (See Poland, 1939.)
Geminid
I think the Turks are having a good laugh over Signalgate. From Ankara-based Clash Report:
Clash Report also posted video of the head of Sudan’s army walking down a Khartoum street. In the last few days his forces have pushed the Rapid Support Forces out of Sudan’s capital. While the army chief said “It’s over,” the RSF still holds large portions of Sudan.
barbequebob
Any time I see or hear any reference to Ms Leavitt, I think, “Axis Sally”. Am I the only who had thoughtthis?
TONYG
Hmmm. A guy in my extended family (husband of a first cousin) is a big-time Trumpie, and is also a retired GENERAL in the National Guard. A wonder whether this shit has put a dent in his ironclad Trump-worship. My guess is that this clusterfuck will have ZERO effect on him. A cult is a cult, and it takes a lot for a person to leave a cult. (And, yeah. He’s in the category of relatives with whom I have a casual conversation a few times a year. But that doesn’t mean that I respect him.)
Dr Daniel Price (Saint Vincent)
If a Republican does it–no matter what it is–it cannot be illegal.
If a Democrat does it–no matter what it is, and even if a Republican has done it–it is a crime.
Hoodie
Looks like Lil Marco and the others are hanging Hegseth out to dry. He’ll get thrown under the bus and the next thing we’ll see is a pic of him from the Tampa PD drunk tank. Man’s got to know his limitations.
Marc
@Doug R: The Chief of Staff was IN THE KREMLIN DURING THE CHAT.
Miss Bianca
@Old Man Shadow:
Yeah, weird, huh? Wonder what’s gotten into them…
Craig
@TS: probably already addressed, but this seems like bullshit, because States run our elections.
Timill
@cope: Emptywheel has a possible:
Why this is the ‘most likely’ solution she didn’t say.
Martin
@tam1MI: Don’t buy that Fox News bullshit excuse. He refused to answer who the real JG would have been when pressed – as if withholding that information matters at all at this point. That was a lie, plain and simple.
glc
@TS: Somewhat exaggerated, as he doesn’t have any authority over that. He’s positioning himself to punish states that don’t implement what at present amounts to a strongly worded request.
Not to downplay the gravity of that, but in terms of reporting it seems careless to write this in a way that suggests it falls within the scope of his office.
Martin
@Timill: Don’t do their work for them. What reason did Waltz have for not naming Jamieson Greer when pressed on Fox News for it? None. He threw out JG initials as cover, and knew it would buy them enough time to scour the federal directory to find a plausible JG to slot in there. Emptywheel knows better than to do their work for them.
This shit is why Democrats are bad at this – you’re much more interested in solving the puzzle than beating the shit out of them. Just beat the shit out of them. It doesn’t fucking matter who the correct JG is. All you’re doing is shifting the focus off the thing that mattered – that they hid their war planning from federal government oversight, and were too fucking stupid to realize when they added a reporter to the text. And thank god it was this reporter and not someone else. It doesn’t matter who should have been in that slot – and if you act like it does, then you’re giving them cover.
Democrats should be hammering the point home that we have had people who gave intelligence to foreign enemies in VERY high levels of the administration. They are locked up in ADX Florence right now. They are the kind of people who might have been invited into such a chat and could have added in a foreign agent. We don’t have the intelligence classification system we have and SCIFs and all that to prevent people from fat fingering their contacts, we have that because it’s not possible to absolutely secure our national security workforce from foreign influence, and those procedures are design to make it so that if you do try and exfiltrate information, OTHER PEOPLE WILL CATCH YOU.
These people bypassed a century of infrastructure designed to catch spies. Why did they do that? The most obvious answer is that they intended to leak national security information to our enemies. That’s the thing Democrats should be forcing them to deny, not who the mysterious JG is. Get it together people.
David Collier-Brown
@ARoomWithAMoose: I read it to say it’s based on Mr Trump’s claim to be able to impound funds that would normally go to the states in question.
A substantial number of his initiatives depend on impoundment, requiring the overturning of the Impoundment Control Act.
David Collier-Brown
@RandomMonster: I think that once was a hamlet in Manitoba. I don’t know if it ever had a radio station (:-))
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@cope: It’s a guess, but somebody in that chat thought that JONAH Goldberg might be interested in the goings-on, and stuck the wrong “jgoldberg” into the Great Google Machine, and voila.
Sister Inspired Revolver of Freedom
Look it’s all fun and games until people start getting killed. By people in this case, I mean the hapless civilians stuck in the Houthi controlled part of Yemen. Some may actually support the Houthis and what they’re doing to world shipping; some may not. It doesn’t matter. They’re all still getting bombed and that’s sure af NOT a great way to make friends and influence people. I’m so angry that this is being ignored by virtually everyone.