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I had already written the edition of the “What Whats Matters” newsletter about the choices of President Donald Trump’s businessmen and political allies created an atmosphere of amateur time to shake up and reduce government work.
But all the examples of how I pale I made compared to the revelation of a new story released Monday by Atlantic Jeffrey Goldberg was with the headline “The Trump administration accidentally texted me a war plan.”
More specifically, the official texting the war plan to journalists appears to be Defence Secretary Pete Hegses, confirmed by the Senate, despite serious questions about his lack of official experience.
The story features all the names of the bold faces responsible for Trump’s national security.
For some reason, Goldberg appears to have been added to the group chat with a private, encrypted messaging platform signal by national security adviser Mike Waltz.
The group included profiles that were likely related to Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence, Tarsi Gabbard, Secretary of Treasury Scott Bescent, White House Advisor Stephen Miller, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.
A national security council spokesperson later confirmed that the message chain appears to be authentic and said it was investigating how Goldberg numbers were added.
The debate included a moment when Vance expressed his opposition to a potential strike against Yemen’s Hooty rebels to pass through the Suez Canal. Because, as Vance points out, Europe, where Vance relies more on the Suez Canal than the United States, benefits more than the United States.
One US company that felt the stab of an attack on the transport route is Tesla, led by US government cost cutter Prime Minister Elon Musk. Tesla was forced to close production at the Berlingiga Factory in January as the attack caused supply chain issues.
Vance also questioned whether President Donald Trump would understand how strikes to ease global trade conflict with his first American policy and urge other senior officials to curb the strike
Goldberg thought the message could be an elaborate troll until top US officials accidentally added him to the chat, discussing sensitive, categorized data about upcoming military attacks, and that Hegses conveyed detailed war plans and stated that a strike was imminent.
A few hours later, Goldberg searched for X and found out that a strike was occurring. Congratulations to the National Security Principal with emojis. Goldberg then deleted himself from the chat.
There are so many questions here.
Why were these officials running by private nonprofits using messaging apps known for their disappearing messages?
It may violate both laws requiring record keeping, and more importantly, laws relating to classified information. There are clearly stated protocols for discussing the classified information.
Why is Hegses so comfortable sending war plans in unclassified environments?
I don’t know the exact nature of what Hegseth sent. Goldberg did not print it. His article states that it contains “information about targets, weapons deployed by the US, and attack sequences.”
Does this obvious violation result?
This is a type of violation that can usually lead to shooting or prison time. While Congress is usually supposed to provide administrative checks and balances, it will soon begin investigating what appears to be such a dramatic security breaches. It’s not clear that this will happen now when Republicans have a small majority in the House and Senate.
What about the obvious irony here?
When Trump was first asked about the Atlantic report at the White House, he criticized the magazine, but said he was not familiar with the report. Trump should be familiar with how things work with sensitive material, as he mishandled the classified data before he won the 2024 election after leaving the White House in 2021. The case was dismissed by a judge he appointed.
Additionally, Trump repeatedly attacked Hillary Clinton for using a private mail server during the Obama administration. In particular, she was criticized for her discussion of material classified in emails. Now, the leader of his entire national security team appears to have belonged to an unclassified system that discusses highly sensitive materials.
What other examples are there?
There are many examples of lack of experience by doing formulas and things in non-traditional ways that lead to problems.
Trump’s best official efforts to negotiate peace efforts for the Middle East and Ukraine Steve Witkov are not diplomats, but real estate developers. It helps explain how Witkov reiterated all the repetitions of Russian stories in an interview with Tucker Carlson. The social security numbers for former government officials were released in a rushed dump of previously classified data. The names of the recently employed CIA agents were included in uncategorized emails sent to the White House. The anti-diversity initiative at Pentagon scrubed a webpage for a while referring to Jackie Robinson’s military career, who broke the colour barrier in professional baseball. Last week there was a report that masks, which are of major business interests in China, can get a pentagonal explanation along with information about China. Trump quickly made it clear that Musk would not get such a briefing, but the Pentagon has launched a leakage investigation, which clearly includes a polygraph test.
There have been many more examples from the early days of the Trump administration, such as when Musk’s government efficiency pushed for the firing of nuclear safety officials and when the Department of Energy had to return to duties. Part of that was probably what Trump supporters wanted when they voted for a candidate who had promised to “eject the swamp.” No one voted for Goldberg to become a war plan.
