Leaking War Plans Is Peak Incompetence Like We've Never Seen.
The Trump Administration Leaked War Plans To A Journalist From The Atlantic Hours Before Carrying Out An Attack.
It was an article so outrageous, at first glance I could not believe it.
In fact, even after seeing it all over social media, I still did not think it could possibly be true.
Then the White House confirmed it.
Leaked in a Signal group chat was a plan to launch a strike on Houthi targets in Yemen where a journalist from The Atlantic was included. It was leaked hours before the attack, and included details such as where and when the attack would be carried out.
Luckily, the journalist had enough integrity to wait until after the attacks to break the story. Luckily it was just a journalist included and not a foreign enemy.
Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of the Department of Defense, of course sought out early to deny these allegations. Stating verbatim:
“Nobody was texting war plans.”
Though the journalist in question, Jeffrey Goldberg, reported that he knew the time in which the attacks were taking place. In a CNN interview, he went as far to state he knew where, and some logistics of the attack as well.
This is enough to have put the troops involved with the mission at risk had this information gotten into the wrong hands. Had it been as extreme as a Houthi member receiving the text, or as mundane as a journalist who immediately leaked the story, lives could have been lost.
In my opinion, this alone is enough justification for the firing of both Mike Waltz and Pete Hegseth. I think especially any Trump supporter who called for the arrest of Hilary Clinton over the email server would be hypocritical to not be outraged at this.
The conversations took place on a public app, on unsecured and non-government devices, all on vanish mode which is illegal due to records needing to be preserved, where there was also an actual civilian leak.
I couldn’t think of anything throughout history that compares to a leak of this substance.
Despite this, Trump has already came to defense of Mike Waltz and Pete Hegseth. Notable as he infamously attempted to direct the DOJ at Hilary Clinton for her reckless use of a private email server.
Typically after something like this, we could rely on investigation from an Inspectors General. However, in one of his first acts as president Trump fired nearly all of the ones currently in service.
Leaving the Trump Administration to now investigate itself, which seemed to be the goal in the ability to clear himself for any perceived wrongdoing.
I think this is a frightening level of incompetence that should not be ignored regardless of which side of the political aisle you find yourself.