On Monday, it was revealed that Trump administration officials discussed specific plans to bomb Houthi rebel targets in Yemen, including references to timing, through an app called Signal without knowledge that a journalist was able to read what was being said.
“TEAM UPDATE: TIME NOW (1144et): Weather is FAVORABLE. Just CONFIRMED w/CENTCOM we are a GO for mission launch,” wrote Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in the chat, going on to describe the timing and the sort of weapons used in the bombings. “1415: Strike Drones on Target (THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP, pending earlier ‘Trigger Based’ targets)”
And so on.
For an act that apparently was so urgent the president didn’t bother seeking congressional approval, the message chain also included exchanges with Vice President JD Vance, who expressed skepticism of the appropriateness of the action.
“I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now,” Vance wrote. “There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices. I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself. But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.”
All of this— from the careless discussion of what one would think to be highly secure war plans on a private messaging app to the vice president making clear there was no imminent threat requiring unauthorized strikes in Yemen — we know because someone at some point added Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of The Atlantic, to the discussion.
Ever since, however, the Trump team has been in full spin mode, attacking Goldberg and downplaying the significance of what happened.
“I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but of all the people out there, somehow this guy who has lied about the president, who has lied to Gold Star families, lied to their attorneys, and gone to Russia, hoax, gone to just all kinds of lengths to lie and smear the president United States, and he’s the one that somehow gets on somebody’s contact and then get sucked into this group,” declared National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, who has taken responsibility (in some sense) for the leak, in an appearance with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham.
Likewise, the Trump White House has denounced the whole thing as a “hoax,” Hegseth has attacked Goldberg as “deceitful” and many of us have now seen the clips of CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard act like they can’t recall anything before Congress.
For an administration that has spent so much time attacking DEI and emphasizing merit, the Trump team here has revealed itself to be an unimpressive bunch.
Perhaps we should hold the Trump administration, or at least those involved in this mess, to the standard set out by Hegseth himself when speaking years ago about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of sensitive information: “If it was anyone other than Hillary Clinton, they would be in jail right now for what has been done,” Hegseth said on Fox News. “Because the assumption is in the intelligence community if you are using unclassified means there is the potential for and likelihood that foreign governments are targeting those accounts and gathering intelligence from them.”
Or do standards only exist when the other side steps in it?