WASHINGTON – Ten years ago this month, the United States discovered that Hillary Clinton was using a private email server to communicate while serving as Secretary of State.
The revelation led to her 2016 presidential campaign, leading to a long FBI investigation and Donald Trump’s promise to put her in prison – “Lock her!” the crowd at his rally chanted – if he wins. He was a winner, but he did not pursue Clinton’s favorable prosecution.
Now, two months after Trump’s second presidency, the top officials in his administration were debating sensitive military operations using a commercially encrypted mobile phone app called Signal, the Atlantic reported Monday.
Clinton, who shared the article on X, quickly proposed more than the Holy Spirit of hypocrisy in the actions of Trump’s national security authorities.
She added “eyeballs” to her post, adding some incredible words.
Clinton’s server’s brief Monday critique comes after Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg reported that he was inadvertently included in a national security group chat about the Yemeni Hoosis military strike earlier this month.
According to the Atlantic, participants appeared to include Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Pete Hegses, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz, White House Susie Wills chief and Deputy Director Stephen Miller. Some were identified only by initials on the signal thread.
Goldberg said the signal chat “contains accurate information about the weapon package, targets and timing” of the strike.
The thread “looks like the real thing,” said National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes in a statement, calling the conversation, “it was declared emojis – “a demonstration of deep and thoughtful policy coordination among senior officials.” He said White House officials were “reviewing” how Goldberg’s phone number was added to the chat.
Hughes also did not address the reasons why government officials circumvented traditional government information systems to discuss the timing of the strike, share operational details in advance, and celebrate their successful execution. The administration has not said whether or at what level the information is classified.
Asked Monday afternoon if the reporters had shared any sorted information, Heggs attacked Goldberg as “a man stepping into the garbage,” saying “no one has texted the war plan.”
In the years since Clinton’s private servers emerged, handling of classified information has become a major issue in the ties between law, national security and politics. During President Joe Biden’s administration, separate special advice was given the authority to investigate Trump and Biden on the retention of classification material from the White House stint. Trump’s first vice president, Mike Pence, quickly returned confidential information to the government and was not charged.
Trump refused to do so. The FBI was charged with a crime related to raiding Palm Beach, Mar Arago, a resort home in Florida in August 2022, and maintaining confidential federal court documents. The court dismissed the charges, along with another lawsuit, including an attack on the US Capitol on January 6, after Trump won the 2024 election.
Trump was using prosecutors as campaign trail feed to portray the Justice Department as a corrupt arm of the Biden White House – Biden was not charged – a message that gathered his political foundation and appealed to some voters outside of it. Meanwhile, amidst the spread of communication tools and the new attention to the mismanagement of sensitive information, federal agencies have taken care to remind employees of appropriate protocols.
For example, in 2022, the Pentagon’s top leader sent a note telling department employees that text messages must also be stored for record keeping in accordance with federal law.
Miller, one of Trump’s most intense defenders, was torn by Clinton in the same year, leaving him vulnerable to American secrets being intercepted by his enemies.
“One point that’s not well-made about Hillary’s unsecured servers is illegally used to do business in the state… Foreign enemies can easily hack OPS & Intel, classified from the other side of the world,” tweeted at the time.
In a chat released Monday, the Atlantic said that someone who appeared to be Miller (he did an initial SM in a signal conversation) effectively concluded the discussion about the timing of the strike. When Vance raised concerns, including a surge in oil prices, the Miller-like person reminded the group that Trump had given the plan a green light.
In 2016, then Florida Senator Rubio criticized Clinton sharply about the use of private servers, saying it was mandatory to ensure that government leaders follow rules regarding derived material.
“Hilary Clinton’s actions are expected to send the worst message to millions of hardworking federal employees, to hold a huge amount of length to maintain security clearance, ensure confidential government information and adhere to rules,” Rubio wrote on Facebook at the time. “They don’t underestimate their oaths. We shouldn’t expect any more of their leaders.”
In 2023, Waltz, a Republican senator from Florida, criticized the Department of Justice for sending a “top secret message” to her private server, Clinton, by then-national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
Sullivan did not reply to his research into Atlantic stories.
Vance’s office failed to address the potential vulnerabilities of sensitive national security information in a statement Monday. Instead, he focused on the question of whether his defense to wait for the strike to be carried out represents a substantial break from Trump. “Vice President Vance is clearly supportive of the administration’s foreign policy. The President and Vice President have had subsequent conversations on this issue and are fully agreed.”
Michigan’s Justin Amash said on X on Monday that Michigan Rep. Justin Amash concluded that the attack could be carried out a month later without putting its purpose or effectiveness at risk. Under the War Powers Act, the President allows and is frequently permitted hostilities without parliament, with the formal authority to declare war in times of emergency.
“The administrative agencies illegally avoided Congress and took military actions that the top officials recognize as selective,” Amash wrote about X.
In the portion of the Atlantic-published thread, no officials objected to using encrypted apps for such secret materials. It also doesn’t mention any important features of signals that could irritate federal record-keeping rules. The user can destroy the message.
According to the Atlantic, some of the messages were set to disappear in a week. The others were set to disappear after four.
Typically, national security authorities will send classified information through government email accounts, phone calls and video conferencing designated for that purpose. They use a joint world wide intelligence communication system, or JWICS, for top secret communications, and materials considered secrets, use a more routinely used system called the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (Siprnet).
When meeting in person to discuss sensitive information, authorities use sensitive compartmentalized information facilities, or what is called SCIF.
All federal employees working on national security issues have signed a document agreeing to comply with strict laws regarding the handling of classified information. Cabinet members are subject to the same laws and regulations.
“Your mobile phone should be in a box outside the scif you should work,” said another former National Security Council staff member under the Democratic president who spoke about the terms of anonymity.
In its report, the Atlantic said it had chosen to withhold details of military actions that could harm national security if revealed to foreign actors.
“The reason we do things in a classified system is to protect our military and overseas staff and make sure it remains astounding,” said the second former NSC official who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid offending the Trump White House.
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, a top Democrat on the Intelligence Email Committee, said he plans to get to the bottom of what happened in the example, saying he will look into whether there are others.
“Our job is to call these people on the carpet and say, ‘How did this happen? Who’s going to be responsible? How can it not happen again, and how many other cases have not been repeated so far,” he said.
The Intelligence Election Committee is holding a public hearing on Tuesday featuring two officials who were apparently on the thread, according to the Atlantic – National Intelligence Director Tarshi Gabbard (who walked through TG on a signal thread) and CIA chief John Ratcliffe. On March 14th, Gabbard, who has no prosecutor, scored a tough line against leakers.
“Unauthorized release of classified information is a violation of the law and is treated as such,” she writes to X.
In an interview Monday, Goldberg said, “We all make mistakes in texting, and it doesn’t usually involve sharing an imminent war plan with a large number of people, including people you don’t know.”
However, he added: “My thoughts have crossed my mind. Imagine if it’s someone else, not me. What will happen? I think this can be counted from a security standpoint.
