Top Trump officials accidentally shared war plans with media
Military Times reports:
“Senior national security officials coordinated airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen earlier this month using an unsecure group chat which accidentally included the top editor of The Atlantic, a move that appears to have broken a host of federal laws and protocols.
In a story released Monday titled “The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans,” Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg said he was added to the group on Signal — an open-source, privacy-focused messaging app — earlier this month by someone identifying themself as Michael Waltz, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser.
The conversation — which eventually included messages from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, among others — included “operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing,” according to Goldberg.
Because of messages sent in the group chat, Goldberg learned of the airstrikes more than two hours before they were made public by government officials, he said.
“The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command’s area of responsibility,” Goldberg wrote.
U.S. military units struck more than 30 targets in Yemen over several days earlier this month as part of an ongoing campaign targeting Iran-backed Houthi rebels, a terrorist group that has halted international shipping for more than a year.
Defense Department officials referred questions on the issue to the National Security Council. NSC officials did not respond to requests for comment.
In a statement National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said that “the message thread that was reported appears to be authentic, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.”
He also asserted that the thread “is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to our service members or our national security.”
But officials may have violated rules regarding sharing secure military information, sensitive operations data and preservation of government records, whether Goldberg was included on the list accidentally or intentionally.
Goldberg wrote that in addition to the sensitive military discussions, senior leaders discussed concerns with Trump’s strategy in the Middle East and complained about European allies’ lack of action in the region.
He also said that Hegseth assured chat participants that “we are currently clean on OPSEC” despite the accidental inclusion of a journalist in the conversation, and the use of an outside-of-government platform.”
My Commentary :
Disregard the assessments of Hughes and Hegseth. This represents a blatant disregard for OPSEC and should result in stripping the security clearances of all involved. Multiple checks and policies are required by regulations and this was a clear and deliberate violation of each of those policies. The app used (Signal), while it has rudimentary encryption, falls far short of meeting requirements for discussion of Top Secret information. Such a conversation should never occur over personal cellphones and should only occur face-to-face in a Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facility (SCIF).
Why did the participants use Signal? The logical conclusion is that they wanted no record of the conversation because Signal deletes all records of the calls. This is yet another violation of security measures.
A second obvious conclusion is that this was not an isolated incident and has likely occurred multiple time since this misadministration assumed office.
Indeed, this may very likely represent what passes for “standard procedures” in this incompetent administration. This breach of security protocols was much more serious than, say, any issues with the Hillary Clinton email server.
This demands a thorough, impartial investigation including a full evaluation of data security in this entire misadministration. It is inconceivable that the list of participants includes the absolute highest ranking members of the cabinet and National Security personnel.
It is also very telling that DONALD TRUMP denied all knowledge of this security breach HOURS AFTER THE INCIDENT OCCURRED. If true, why wasn’t he IMMEDIATELY BRIEFED?
“Senior national security officials coordinated airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen earlier this month using an unsecure group chat which accidentally included the top editor of The Atlantic, a move that appears to have broken a host of federal laws and protocols.
In a story released Monday titled “The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans,” Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg said he was added to the group on Signal — an open-source, privacy-focused messaging app — earlier this month by someone identifying themself as Michael Waltz, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser.
The conversation — which eventually included messages from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, among others — included “operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing,” according to Goldberg.
Because of messages sent in the group chat, Goldberg learned of the airstrikes more than two hours before they were made public by government officials, he said.
“The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command’s area of responsibility,” Goldberg wrote.
U.S. military units struck more than 30 targets in Yemen over several days earlier this month as part of an ongoing campaign targeting Iran-backed Houthi rebels, a terrorist group that has halted international shipping for more than a year.
Defense Department officials referred questions on the issue to the National Security Council. NSC officials did not respond to requests for comment.
In a statement National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said that “the message thread that was reported appears to be authentic, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.”
He also asserted that the thread “is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to our service members or our national security.”
But officials may have violated rules regarding sharing secure military information, sensitive operations data and preservation of government records, whether Goldberg was included on the list accidentally or intentionally.
Goldberg wrote that in addition to the sensitive military discussions, senior leaders discussed concerns with Trump’s strategy in the Middle East and complained about European allies’ lack of action in the region.
He also said that Hegseth assured chat participants that “we are currently clean on OPSEC” despite the accidental inclusion of a journalist in the conversation, and the use of an outside-of-government platform.”
My Commentary :
Disregard the assessments of Hughes and Hegseth. This represents a blatant disregard for OPSEC and should result in stripping the security clearances of all involved. Multiple checks and policies are required by regulations and this was a clear and deliberate violation of each of those policies. The app used (Signal), while it has rudimentary encryption, falls far short of meeting requirements for discussion of Top Secret information. Such a conversation should never occur over personal cellphones and should only occur face-to-face in a Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facility (SCIF).
Why did the participants use Signal? The logical conclusion is that they wanted no record of the conversation because Signal deletes all records of the calls. This is yet another violation of security measures.
A second obvious conclusion is that this was not an isolated incident and has likely occurred multiple time since this misadministration assumed office.
Indeed, this may very likely represent what passes for “standard procedures” in this incompetent administration. This breach of security protocols was much more serious than, say, any issues with the Hillary Clinton email server.
This demands a thorough, impartial investigation including a full evaluation of data security in this entire misadministration. It is inconceivable that the list of participants includes the absolute highest ranking members of the cabinet and National Security personnel.
It is also very telling that DONALD TRUMP denied all knowledge of this security breach HOURS AFTER THE INCIDENT OCCURRED. If true, why wasn’t he IMMEDIATELY BRIEFED?
