I recall that Trump issued some Order providing for immediate interim security clearances for his team for 6 months.
That would explain why Tulsi Gabbard professed ignorance of the classification of national security material . When she stood corrected in her testimony, she said something to the effect that nobody had told her that.
The Senator reminded her that she is the Director of National Intelligence.
Then the CIA Director Ratcliffe had NFI how names get on their Signal chat list.
1 Like
TXT UR M8âS IF UR KEEN
6 Likes
Actually I think we should wait and see how it plays out.
3 Likes
Letâs start getting rid of the courts, because like they only get in the way.
5 Likes
Iâm waiting for the entlightened centrists to come back and smugly deride us for making such a big deal out of these shitshows
3 Likes
LIVE: Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on global threats
1 Like
â â â â I canât stand Hillary. You lost to this absolute degenerate loser. You enabled him. Just pipe down.
2 Likes
Yes Hilary shouldnât have forced that FBI Director to announce days before the election that they were investigating her.
(*Even though there were no grounds for them to do so)
1 Like
The election was lost way before then
1 Like
That was a pretty significant moment in 2016. How much of the final margin is up for debate, but it was definitely a serious part of it.
It was going to come out either way though. SDNY was going to leak it to Giuliani if Comey didnât announce it himself.
1 Like
More abuse of authority by judges in contrast to the popular will⌠The TYRANNY of the JUDICIARY.
Not at all dangerous, these people.
Nothing will change, donât worry.
5 Likes
Stallone was far more eloquent in that movie.
4 Likes
Iâve said it dozens of times before but it bears repeating⌠Hillary had nobody to blame but herself, and the hubris with which she ran her campaign is a very big reason why we are in the mess we are in now.
9 Likes
She and the DNC heavyweights of the time do not cop enough heat for their pied-pipering of Trump.
5 Likes
The Atlantic has now published the entire conversation.
So, about that Signal chat.
On Monday, shortly after we published a story about a massive Trump-administration security breach, a reporter asked the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, why he had shared plans about a forthcoming attack on Yemen on the Signal messaging app. He answered, âNobody was texting war plans. And thatâs all I have to say about that.â
At a Senate hearing yesterday, the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Ratcliffe, were both asked about the Signal chat, to which Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, was inadvertently invited by National Security Adviser Michael Waltz. âThere was no classified material that was shared in that Signal group,â Gabbard told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Ratcliffe said much the same: âMy communications, to be clear, in the Signal message group were entirely permissible and lawful and did not include classified information.â
President Donald Trump, asked yesterday afternoon about the same matter, said, âIt wasnât classified information.â
These statements presented us with a dilemma. In The Atlanticâs initial story about the Signal chatâthe âHouthi PC small group,â as it was named by Waltzâwe withheld specific information related to weapons and to the timing of attacks that we found in certain texts. As a general rule, we do not publish information about military operations if that information could possibly jeopardize the lives of U.S. personnel. That is why we chose to characterize the nature of the information being shared, not specific details about the attacks.
Read: The Trump administration accidentally texted me its war plans
The statements by Hegseth, Gabbard, Ratcliffe, and Trumpâcombined with the assertions made by numerous administration officials that we are lying about the content of the Signal textsâhave led us to believe that people should see the texts in order to reach their own conclusions. There is a clear public interest in disclosing the sort of information that Trump advisers included in nonsecure communications channels, especially because senior administration figures are attempting to downplay the significance of the messages that were shared.
Experts have repeatedly told us that use of a Signal chat for such sensitive discussions poses a threat to national security. As a case in point, Goldberg received information on the attacks two hours before the scheduled start of the bombing of Houthi positions. If this informationâparticularly the exact times American aircraft were taking off for Yemenâhad fallen into the wrong hands in that crucial two-hour period, American pilots and other American personnel could have been exposed to even greater danger than they ordinarily would face. The Trump administration is arguing that the military information contained in these texts was not classifiedâas it typically would beâalthough the president has not explained how he reached this conclusion.
Yesterday, we asked officials across the Trump administration if they objected to us publishing the full texts. In emails to the Central Intelligence Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the National Security Council, the Department of Defense, and the White House, we wrote, in part: âIn light of statements today from multiple administration officials, including before the Senate Intelligence Committee, that the information in the Signal chain about the Houthi strike is not classified, and that it does not contain âwar plans,â The Atlantic is considering publishing the entirety of the Signal chain.â
We sent our first request for comment and feedback to national-security officials shortly after noon, and followed up in the evening after most failed to answer.
Late yesterday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt emailed a response: âAs we have repeatedly stated, there was no classified information transmitted in the group chat. However, as the CIA Director and National Security Advisor have both expressed today, that does not mean we encourage the release of the conversation. This was intended to be a an [sic] internal and private deliberation amongst high-level senior staff and sensitive information was discussed. So for those reason [sic] â yes, we object to the release.â (The Leavitt statement did not address which elements of the texts the White House considered sensitive, or how, more than a week after the initial air strikes, their publication could have bearing on national security.)
A CIA spokesperson asked us to withhold the name of John Ratcliffeâs chief of staff, which Ratcliffe had shared in the Signal chain, because CIA intelligence officers are traditionally not publicly identified. Ratcliffe had testified earlier yesterday that the officer is not undercover and said it was âcompletely appropriateâ to share their name in the Signal conversation. We will continue to withhold the name of the officer. Otherwise, the messages are unredacted.
Listen: Jeffrey Goldberg on the group chat that broke the internet
As we wrote on Monday, much of the conversation in the âHouthi PC small groupâ concerned the timing and rationale of attacks on the Houthis, and contained remarks by Trump-administration officials about the alleged shortcomings of Americaâs European allies. But on the day of the attackâSaturday, March 15âthe discussion veered toward the operational.
At 11:44 a.m. eastern time, Hegseth posted in the chat, in all caps, âTEAM UPDATE:â
The text beneath this began, âTIME NOW (1144et): Weather is FAVORABLE. Just CONFIRMED w/CENTCOM we are a GO for mission launch.â Centcom, or Central Command, is the militaryâs combatant command for the Middle East. The Hegseth text continues:
- â1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package)â
- â1345: âTrigger Basedâ F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME â also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s)â
Let us pause here for a moment to underscore a point. This Signal message shows that the U.S. secretary of defense texted a group that included a phone number unknown to himâGoldbergâs cellphoneâat 11:44 a.m. This was 31 minutes before the first U.S. warplanes launched, and two hours and one minute before the beginning of a period in which a primary target, the Houthi âTarget Terrorist,â was expected to be killed by these American aircraft. If this text had been received by someone hostile to American interestsâor someone merely indiscreet, and with access to social mediaâthe Houthis would have had time to prepare for what was meant to be a surprise attack on their strongholds. The consequences for American pilots could have been catastrophic.
The Hegseth text then continued:
- â1410: More F-18s LAUNCH (2nd strike package)â
- â1415: Strike Drones on Target (THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP, pending earlier âTrigger Basedâ targets)â
- â1536 F-18 2nd Strike Starts â also, first sea-based Tomahawks launched.â
- âMORE TO FOLLOW (per timeline)â
- âWe are currently clean on OPSECââthat is, operational security.
- âGodspeed to our Warriors.â
Shortly after, Vice President J. D. Vance texted the group, âI will say a prayer for victory.â
At 1:48 p.m., Waltz sent the following text, containing real-time intelligence about conditions at an attack site, apparently in Sanaa: âVP. Building collapsed. Had multiple positive ID. Pete, Kurilla, the IC, amazing job.â Waltz was referring here to Hegseth; General Michael E. Kurilla, the commander of Central Command; and the intelligence community, or IC. The reference to âmultiple positive IDâ suggests that U.S. intelligence had ascertained the identities of the Houthi target, or targets, using either human or technical assets.
Six minutes later, the vice president, apparently confused by Waltzâs message, wrote, âWhat?â
At 2 p.m., Waltz responded: âTyping too fast. The first target â their top missile guy â we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriendâs building and itâs now collapsed.â
Vance responded a minute later: âExcellent.â Thirty-five minutes after that, Ratcliffe, the CIA director, wrote, âA good start,â which Waltz followed with a text containing a fist emoji, an American-flag emoji, and a fire emoji. The Houthi-run Yemeni health ministry reported that at least 53 people were killed in the strikes, a number that has not been independently verified.
Later that afternoon, Hegseth posted: âCENTCOM was/is on point.â Notably, he then told the group that attacks would be continuing. âGreat job all. More strikes ongoing for hours tonight, and will provide full initial report tomorrow. But on time, on target, and good readouts so far.â
It is still unclear why a journalist was added to the text exchange. Waltz, who invited Goldberg into the Signal chat, said yesterday that he was investigating âhow the heck he got into this room.â
I will post the images in a new post.
I will also add, that if the comments made Michael Waltz regarding the capabilities of their European alliesâ navies are correct, then if I was one of those allies I would be mightily pi55ed right now. The US has now effectively made every allies navy a target of the missiles/drones that are being supplied to the Houthiâs because they have just had a vital piece of information regarding a major vulnerability broadcast to the whole world.
10 Likes
