Update: Administration Proves Its Ineptness

Watching various members of the Punk administration respond to the whole mess about the Signal chat would be hilarious if the matter itself weren’t so serious. For their part, the unifying message across all members of the administration who were involved in the chat is to deny that any classified information was used in the text. We can’t tell because Mr. Goldberg, on the advice of The Atlantic’s attorneys, didn’t publish what they felt could be a security risk. What he did post can be seen in this morning’s article.

For his part, Goldberg is now saying, “Maybe in the coming days, I’ll be able to let you know that I have a plan to have this material vetted publicly.” He’s keeping the cards close to his chest, though, emphasizing that he takes national security information “very seriously” — regardless of whether it’s classified or not — and is “sticking to my principles here.” It seems likely that, sooner or later, there could be a closed-door congressional hearing to determine what those texts actually said.

News of the leak hit too late yesterday for there to be any response from European leaders taking exception to VP Fuxacouch calling them ‘pathetic.’ A day has passed now. Here are some of the comments we’ve seen.

“Putin is now unemployed: No point in spying anymore,” Nathalie Loiseau, a member of the European Parliament, wrote on X, saying the leaks now came from the Americans themselves. “No point in crushing Ukraine anymore, [Punk] will take care of it.”

“It is clear that the trans-Atlantic relationship, as was, is over, and there is, at best, an indifferent disdain,” said Nathalie Tocci, director of Italy’s Institute of International Affairs, who formerly advised a top E.U. official. “And at worst, and closer to that, there is an active attempt to undermine Europe.”

Anna Sauerbrey, the foreign editor of Die Zeit, noted that the explicit demand for payment, rather than just political and military support, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, was new. And it ignored the fact that “the U.S. depends on global trade,” she said, and that “France, Britain, and the Netherlands have deployed ships to the region” for the same purpose. The Americans, she said, “are constantly overlooking European efforts.”

Christel Schaldemose, a Danish politician who is a center-left member of the European Parliament, said the way the U.S. has been talking about the E.U. in general lately is “not helping.”

“Could we start talking to each other as allies and not enemies?” she said.

Notice that none of those quotes are coming from top European leaders or military personnel. We looked and they’re all keeping their mouths shut around open microphones. US leaders would probably do well to learn that same lesson.

Ukraine and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff was in Moscow, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, when he was included in the group chat. It seems that everyone in the intelligence community was already aware that Russia has been actively trying to intercept Signal messages for quite a while and has had some success in doing so. Witkoff being in Moscow and participating in the conversation could have given Russian intelligence an open door to reading everything they discussed.

A month before the breach of the Signal group chat of high-level US officials was revealed, the National Security Agency (NSA) sent out an operational security special memo to its employees cautioning them about using the encrypted messaging application. “A vulnerability has been identified in the Signal Messenger Application,” the agency said in February. “The use of Signal by common targets of surveillance and espionage activity has made the application a high-value target to intercept sensitive information.”

Apparently, that warning was not enough to stop high-level administration officials, perhaps because they all feel that they’re better than everyone else and that the rules don’t apply to them. That certainly seems to be a theme of this administration.

Mick Mulroy, a former deputy assistant secretary of defence and retired CIA paramilitary officer, noted that the name of the chat – Houthi PC Small Group – indicated that “they need to scale down the principals group because the information is so sensitive. Doing a PC Small Group on an unsure commercial application is unacceptable, and everyone on that chat knew it”.

“You do not need to be a member of the military or intelligence community to know that this information is exactly what the enemy would want to know,” he added. “It clearly does put our military members at risk”.

Most recently, at the end of today’s testimony in the House, the chair of the Senate’s armed services committee, Republican Roger Wicker, confirmed the committee would investigate the Signal group chat leak. Wicker says he wants the investigation to be bipartisan and for the committee to have full access to the group chat’s transcript.

Someone go ahead and book Jeff Goldberg a flight to Washington. Something tells us that his subpoena is being typed up now.