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Comment by danso

8 months ago

Staggering display of incompetence and carelessness. And unfortunately, one that we’re unlikely to get much transparency about, in terms of how such an operational screwup was allowed to happen.

> At 11:44 a.m., the account labeled “Pete Hegseth” posted in Signal a “TEAM UPDATE.” I will not quote from this update, or from certain other subsequent texts. The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command’s area of responsibility. What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.

> …The Signal chat group, I concluded, was almost certainly real. Having come to this realization, one that seemed nearly impossible only hours before, I removed myself from the Signal group, understanding that this would trigger an automatic notification to the group’s creator, “Michael Waltz,” that I had left. No one in the chat had seemed to notice that I was there. And I received no subsequent questions about why I left—or, more to the point, who I was

Don’t worry - this massive fuckup will surely spark numerous congressional investigations, resignations, and trigger serious reflection by the administration on their security protocols so they will comply with the necessary recordkeeping laws, confidentiality and proper handling of classified information in the future.

Oh who am I kidding.

Less than 8h later: “it’s just an oopsie right? No harm no foul- nothing to see here folks” https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/03/24/congress/mi...

  • >Less than 8h later: “it’s just an oopsie right? No harm no foul- nothing to see here folks” https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/03/24/congress/mi...

    Oh, much worse than that. https://x.com/Acyn/status/1904309995019411933

    Despite the fact that the NSC already said it appears to be legitimate, Hegseth is going into full attack mode against the "discredited, so-called journalist".

    • Would be great to live in a world where nearly every voter that saw the NSC response and then the Hegseth response could see the clear contradiction in responses and then make the correct interpretation that whenever these clowns are crying about hoaxes and lying media they are full of shit and 100% in CYA-mode so you should never trust them when they do this on any topic.

      Of course, we don't live in that world.

  • Sadly, were this a different administration, they would have already declared an investigation with a goal to impeach a president. Such a ridiculous double-standard with clear partisanship on display. “Both sides”…

  • I've already seen at least two posts on X with claims that this was actually all intentional and that "Trump is playing 5D chess"... and I think they were serious.

> Staggering display of incompetence and carelessness. And unfortunately, one that we’re unlikely to get much transparency about, in terms of how such an operational screwup was allowed to happen.

I have a theory that's well backed by history: when your sole qualification for applicants for important positions in any organization is how well they fondle your balls, you often miss other important data points: for example, if they can use messaging apps correctly.

Is this worst than using Top Secret documents as toilet paper?

https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2023/06/FyM1h-C...

  • I never realized before with this photo, but space was actually made to still use the toilet sitting in that room with the tower of boxes 6 inches from your face. Straight out of a comedy sketch, almost too perfectly staged with the gaudy lights, stool colored formica, and $2 walmart shower curtain with the pressure fit rod right into the plaster. A shame for all of us that the photo came out of real life and not satire.

  • Pardon my ignorance but what’s the context of this picture? I don’t watch the news fwiw.

Almost as bad as a private email server being used for governmental business.

  • “People have gone to jail for 1/100th of what – even 1/1,000th of what Hillary Clinton did.” -Hegseth

    “How is it Hillary Clinton can delete 33,000 government emails on a private server yet President Trump gets indicted for having documents he could declassify?” - Waltz

    “Nobody is above the law. Not even Hillary Clinton – even though she thinks she is,” -Rubio

    • I always ask MAGA people why Clinton wasn't prosecuted by the Trump administration over this, and have never received a clear reply, if I got a reply at all.

      1 reply →

  • No, that was intentional.

    This incident was an accident.

    • How was the signal group an accident? It's not (just) adding the journalist which is the problem, it's using a non-approve communication platform for sensitive information.