Saturday, 10 May 2025

Vance, Hegseth Caught Up In Huge National Security Text Message Scandal?

100 Percent Fed Up
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A story is breaking right now that JD Vance and Pete Hegseth were on a group text chain and somehow a “journalist” for The Atlantic was then somehow added in to the text chain by mistake.

I’m going to report on the story first and then tell you what I think.

People like the Krassen brothers were giddy to report the news:

The text messages allegedly include the following:

Some are saying these were “leaked” intentionally to send a message to Europe:

Others are hoping this is “Fake News”:

Elon Musk even chimed in, mocking The Atlantic by saying no one would ever even see the story because no one reads The Atlantic:

The most common refrain I am seeing is that it was an intentional “leak” to send a message because this group is highly organized and to believe this could happen organically strains credultity:

Next let me show you what CNN reported before I tell you what I think:

Former national security officials reacted with shock and horror to revelations in The Atlantic that top members of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet sent detailed operational plans and other likely highly classified information about US military strikes on Yemen to a group thread on a messaging app to which a reporter had accidentally been added.

The Trump administration acknowledged the messages, sent over the nongovernment encrypted chat app Signal, seem to be authentic without offering any explanation for why senior officials were discussing national defense information outside of approved classified government systems.

According to the Atlantic, national security adviser Mike Waltz earlier this month convened a text conversation with top US officials, including Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, to discuss strikes on Houthi militants in Yemen who had been threatening international shipping in the Red Sea. Waltz, apparently accidentally, added Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg to the chain.

The messages started with a discussion about when the action should be launched while Goldberg followed along. The strikes were carried out and the principals congratulated themselves on a job well done during a brief after-action discussion before Goldberg removed himself.

“Dear Sweet Baby Jesus,” said one former senior US official, reacting to the reporting.

“No,” another said, flatly, when asked if there was any analogous use of the app during the Biden administration.

Signal is an encrypted messaging app that is popular around the world, including among journalists and government officials. Biden administration officials also routinely used it to discuss logistical planning for meetings and at times to communicate with foreign counterparts.

But the use of Signal to discuss planning for military operations – among the most closely guarded secrets the United States has in part because of the potential impact on American service members’ lives – is a shocking risk to national security, former officials said. Multiple officials said they could recall no instance in which Signal was used to communicate classified information or discuss military operations. The top officials on the group chat have access to classified communications systems, and they have staff whose job it is to ensure communications of sensitive information remains secure.

“They broke every procedure known to man about protecting operational material before a military strike,” said a former senior intelligence official. “You have a total breakdown in security about a military operation.”

Trust in the security of Signal is bolstered by the fact that the app is open-source, meaning its code is available for independent experts to scrutinize for vulnerabilities. But like any messaging app with high-value targets, state-backed hackers have tried to find a way into Signal chats – leaving open the possibility that it may be vulnerable to prying eyes.

A report last month from Google-owned security firm Mandiant found that Russian-linked spies had tried to break into the Signal accounts of Ukrainian military personnel by posing as trusted Signal contacts.

A western intelligence official praised Signal as excellent for its encryption but said it “should never be used for classified or operational data, let alone policy discussions at a top government level.”

This kind of breach could “impact the level of trust between partners and allies,” the official said. “Now is definitely a good time for a lesson or two to their most senior officials on internal communications and how to do that in a proper way.”

A mistake that would normally prompt an investigation
Using a Signal chat to share highly classified information and accidentally including a reporter on the discussion also raises the possibility of violations of federal laws such as the Espionage Act, which makes it a crime to mishandle national defense information. It’s a law that was used in the Justice Department’s prosecution of Trump for hoarding classified documents in unauthorized locations such as a bathroom at Mar-a-Lago after leaving his first term.

Under normal circumstances, a mistake such as this would prompt an investigation by the FBI and the Justice Department’s national security division, according to former Justice Department officials.

That’s unlikely here, in part because some of the top Trump administration officials on the Signal chat would be the ones to ask for such an investigation.

The Justice Department typically relies on receiving a crime report from the originating agency of the national defense information – in this case the Defense Department. The senior officials in the discussion also have what’s known as original classification authority, meaning they can downgrade the classification status of the information.

But if lower-level government officials made a similar mistake, there’s little doubt there would be consequences, including possible loss of their security clearances, current and former officials say. Pentagon regulations specifically state that messaging apps, including Signal, “are NOT authorized to access, transmit, process non-public DoD information.”

“If anyone else did it, no question it would be investigated,” a former Justice official said.

Trump claimed not to know anything about what happened.

“I don’t know anything about it,” Trump told reporters on Monday when asked about Goldberg’s piece.

“I’m not a big fan of the Atlantic. It’s, to me, it’s a magazine that’s going out of business. I think it’s not much of a magazine. But I know nothing about it,” Trump said.

“It couldn’t have been very effective, because the attack was very effective. I can tell you, I don’t know anything about it. You’re telling me about it for the first time,” he added.

‘Somebody needs to get fired’
Over the course of the conversation, Hegseth sent “operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing,” according to The Atlantic. Elsewhere in the conversation, CIA Director John Ratcliffe sent “information that might be interpreted as related to actual and current intelligence operations.”

All would almost certainly be classified at the highest level, former officials said.

Ok, so now let’s get down to brass tacks….

What do I think?

Perhaps I’m biased, but we strive extremely hard here to report the news openly and fairly even when it puts someone in the MAGA camp in a bad light.

But here?

My first thought as I read these texts was that they don’t read authentic to me.

One thing I’m pretty good at is the written word and “voice” and I am here to tell you that the “voice” of these text messages is a voice that sounds like someone writing a fake story.

This simply doesn’t have the “voice” of Hegseth or Vance in these text messages.

They don’t speak like this and I highly doubt they text like this.

In other words, this just feels FAKE to me.

That’s my gut reaction, the content of these alleged text messages just feels incredibly fake to me.

We’ll see what happens, but right now I’m just not buying it.

It feels like something some low-rent hack would type up thinking they could frame Vance and Hegseth.

That’s just my gut.

I could be wrong.

Time will tell, and if it truly was a mistake, it’s a big one.

But everything about this just feels “off” to me.

What do you think?

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport.

View the original article here.


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