Trump’s Defense Secretary Accidentally Texted War Plans to The Atlantic: ‘I Didn’t Think It Could Be Real,’ Editor Says

[NxNW]

Yeah, too bad the precedent has already been set by not charging Hillary

Well, her server was more secure than the government one, which is why Powell recommended she use it.

 

[NxNW]

What makes you think her server was secure?

She got it specifically to be more secure than the government server. Have any leaks from it been discovered?

 

[Bradskii]

Mom: Peter, that password for Paramount that you sent me...it won't work. Is it all upper case?
Pete: Ah, sorry. I sent you the nuclear codes by mistake. Can you delete that message? Thanks. Say hi to dad.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Not meme, reality.

President Trump shares a Babylon Bee story that roasts both the Atlantic and him.

 

[Gene2memE]

This story deserves to be on the front page of every print and online media outlet in the US. Everyone involved needs to face serious repercussions.

The combination of buffoonery, truculence and amateurishness on display in these texts should be career ending. Unfortunately, the current administration doesn't appear to include 'competence' as one of its hiring requirements.

Senior administration and cabinet officials along with high-level US intelligence officials communicated classified information via an open-source public encryption service about an imminent national security action. Some of them did so on non-secured and non-government issued mobile devices.

They failed to follow basic operational security protocols. There are laws governing this stuff (Espionage Act and National Security Act for a start) and they breached about 20 of them. Not just operational security stuff, but information retention/preservation and accountability laws as well.

They then managed to magnify their mistake by inviting a journalist into the chat and then failing to recognise that they'd done so.

If you're a member of the military or intelligence community, this is the sort of thing that gets you arrested and then locked up in a deep, dark hole and forgotten about.

 

[Fantine]

Should we really expect more security from the staff of a man who stored boxes of top secret materials in his hotel bathroom?
Obviously security isn't a focus.

 

[Gene2memE]

This is the icing on the cake:

Tulsi Gabbard - Director of National Intelligence - 14 March 2025:

"Any unauthorized release of classified information is a violation of the law and will be treated as such."

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

Pete Hegseth, President Trump’s secretary of defense, inadvertently included the top editor of The Atlantic in a Signal text chat group revealing the U.S.’s attack plans on Houthi rebels in Yemen earlier this month, according to the magazine.​

​

The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, reported in a nearly 3,500-word story published Monday that the most senior national-security leaders of the United States included him in a group chat on Signal about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. “I didn’t think it could be real,” he wrote. “Then the bombs started falling.” HERE​

I will tell you this, from Trump telling Russians top secrets in the White house causing Israel scrambling to remove assets they had from out Russia, to Trump telling a foreign nationalist top nuclear sub top secrets at Mar A Largo, everyone with a clandestine spying program are smiling from ear to ear. Not one that, why are air strike plans being discussed on apps sold to the pubic? This is the utter incompetence warned about come Pete ol boy.

It is all so unbelievable. Can't make it up. But all real.

 

[Belk]

The use of Signal doesn't really raise any security concerns for me (they use end-to-end encryption, and it's run by a US-based nonprofit). The main problems I have with this are data retention (because the messages are fully encrypted and tied to the accounts of the recipients, it would be relatively easy to destroy the records of anything sent through the app) and the fact that they were so easily able to add a non-government contact to a chat by accident.

It raises some for me. The encryption it uses is secure enough but the fact that it is device dependent with no MFA means if anyone got a hold of the device it would be easy to open the app and read messages. The bigger concern is the destruction of communication. All comms of this sort is to be secured and saved. Signal has a built in data wipe meaning it could not be preserved per the presidential records act.

 

[ozso]

Pete Hegseth, President Trump’s secretary of defense, inadvertently included the top editor of The Atlantic in a Signal text chat group revealing the U.S.’s attack plans on Houthi rebels in Yemen earlier this month, according to the magazine.​

​

The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, reported in a nearly 3,500-word story published Monday that the most senior national-security leaders of the United States included him in a group chat on Signal about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. “I didn’t think it could be real,” he wrote. “Then the bombs started falling.” HERE​

I will tell you this, from Trump telling Russians top secrets in the White house causing Israel scrambling to remove assets they had from out Russia, to Trump telling a foreign nationalist top nuclear sub top secrets at Mar A Largo, everyone with a clandestine spying program are smiling from ear to ear. Not one that, why are air strike plans being discussed on apps sold to the pubic? This is the utter incompetence warned about come Pete ol boy.

It was not Pete Hegseth. It was Michael Waltz.

 

[CRAZY_CAT_WOMAN]

I've texted the wrong person when I was sober, I didn't give away national secrets but I gave some information I would rather have not

But you don't work top secret for the president. There's not excuse. Period. Not even for Hillary or Trump's daughter.

 

[essentialsaltes]

It was not Pete Hegseth. It was Michael Waltz.

As I understand it, National Security Advisor Waltz invited him into the group chat. Defense Secretary Hegseth spilled the plans in a chat app.

 

[ozso]

As I understand it, National Security Advisor Waltz invited him into the group chat. Defense Secretary Hegseth spilled the plans in a chat app.

Waltz mistakenly added Jeffrey Goldberg to the Signal chat. Hegseth most likely wasn't aware of the error Waltz made.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Waltz mistakenly added Jeffrey Goldberg to the Signal chat. Hegseth most likely wasn't aware of the error Waltz made.

Was Hegseth aware he shouldn't be sending critical national security information over Signal?

 

[Fantine]

It raises some for me. The encryption it uses is secure enough but the fact that it is device dependent with no MFA means if anyone got a hold of the device it would be easy to open the app and read messages. The bigger concern is the destruction of communication. All comms of this sort is to be secured and saved. Signal has a built in data wipe meaning it could not be preserved per the presidential records act.

What? They use Signal? The more paranoid of my progressive friends have changed to Signal and proton.me email to protect themselves from people like them!

 

[ozso]

Was Hegseth aware he shouldn't be sending critical national security information over Signal?

I was just addressing the error in the first sentence of the OP post.

Pete Hegseth, President Trump’s secretary of defense, inadvertently included the top editor of The Atlantic in a Signal text chat group​

​

 

[ozso]

What? They use Signal? The more paranoid of my progressive friends have changed to Signal and proton.me email to protect themselves from people like them!

I doubt Jeffrey Goldberg is all that bad of a guy.

 

[Fantine]

I doubt Jeffrey Goldberg is all that bad of a guy.

I was referring to the others in the meeting.

 

[ozso]

I was referring to the others in the meeting.

I know. It was a joke. I was hoping to maybe give you a little chuckle.

 

[The Liturgist]

You know, leaking a detailed plan of invasion has been successfully used in the past as a psy-op technique. If you convince an enemy you are serious about destroying them, you may avoid the need for an actual military conflict.

Aside from the fact that, like so many “accidental” leaks, this may not have been accidental at all, there is also the fact that there is always more than one way for a superpower like the US to conduct a military operation against the Houthis.

I myself would favor avoiding a military attack, but instead attempting to foster a peaceful reconciliation between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia in order to cut Iran out of the Red Sea.