Correct. He should have immediately recused himself from the chat. Fortunately no war plans or classified materials were disseminated.
You are absolutely correct, he should have. We can also say with absolute certainty that no right leaning reporter would have recused themselves in a similar situation. Not one. Not in this day and age. And Republicans would be doing the exact same thing the democrats are now doing, taking full advantage of a really bonehead move by the opposition. Thankfully the mission was a success even with the security breach.
Trump officials' cell numbers — and passwords — found online German news outlet Der Spiegel reported Wednesday that not only were Trump's officials communicating via Signal, their cell phone numbers can be found online. Hegseth, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Gabbard all had their private data, passwords and cell phone numbers leaked and can be found online, the publication said. "Most of the publicly accessible numbers and email addresses are likely still being used by those affected," the report said. "Some are linked to profiles on Instagram and LinkedIn, among others. Dropbox accounts and profiles in apps that track traffic data were created with them. WhatsApp profiles, and in some cases even Signal accounts, can be found for the respective phone numbers. The research therefore reveals another serious security vulnerability in Washington that was previously unknown." The report also said that as recently as Wednesday, privately used and publicly searchable phone numbers of Gabbard and Waltz were still available online. Those numbers are linked to the Signal accounts used in "Signalgate." "It is therefore conceivable that foreign agents were reading along as Gabbard, Waltz, and Hegseth discussed a military strike with others in a Signal chat," the report said through a translation.
Latest Signal leak revelations expose US officials’ lies about what was shared https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/26/new-revelations-us-signal-leak-claims-doubt-yemen Trump officials had claimed nothing classified or risking harm to members of the military was shared in the chat The disclosure by the Atlantic of further devastating messages from the Signal chat group used by the Trump administration’s most senior security officials has nailed the lie that nothing that threatened the safety of US servicemen and women was shared on the group. After the vague and evasive assertions by Trump officials at Monday’s Senate intelligence committee hearing, from the White House, and from the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, that no war plans or classified material was shared, readers can make up their own minds. Despite Hegseth’s angry denial, the exchanges in the leaked group chat did contain details of war planning, shared recklessly by him in advance of the attack on 15 March, on a messaging system and perhaps devices which he and others in the chat could not have been certain were secure. Most damning is the fact that Hegseth sent details in advance of the F-18s and other aircraft that would take part in the attack, including the timing of their arrival at targets, and other assets that would be deployed. As Ryan Goodman, a law professor who formerly worked at the Pentagon, put it after the latest release: “The Atlantic has now published the Signal texts with attack plans in response to administration denials. I worked at the Pentagon. If information like this is not classified, nothing is. If Hegseth is claiming he declassified this information, he should be shown the door for having done so.” In attempting to cover up and diminish their culpability for a shocking breach of operational security – including the fact that two participants in the chat were overseas (including one in Moscow at the time) – the Trump administration has made the scandal immeasurably more serious than it was already. At the most simple level, the pilots who flew on those strikes should rightly be furious that the most senior civilian defence official placed them in harm’s way. “If this text had been received by someone hostile to American interests – or someone merely indiscreet, and with access to social media – the 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,” wrote Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic editor who was accidentally added to the chat. A question that now needs to be answered is precisely why a group of senior officials, including a number who have served in the US armed forces – including the director of National intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, the national security adviser, Mike Waltz, the vice-president, JD Vance, and Hegseth – agreed to join a conversation on such a platform. All of them will be aware of not just the stringent rules around operational security (Opsec in military jargon) but the absolute necessity to protect the lives of those you serve with. The strong suspicion voiced by a number of commentators is that this group, like other senior officials in the Trump administration, have been using services like Signal to avoid oversight despite potentially being in breach of federal laws on record retention. In other words, lives were casually put at risk to shirk another significant responsibility of the highest offices: accountability. What happens next is key. In any normal circumstances and in any previous era, Hegseth and Waltz would be expected to resign immediately: Hegseth for sharing what any reasonable observer would regard as details of war plans – and then lying about having done so – and Waltz for his shocking sloppiness around security. But whether or not they will resign or be dismissed by a dysfunctional president, equally hostile to the notion he should be held accountable, is an open question. What should be clear to already shocked allies of the US is that not only is intelligence and other sensitive material not safe in the hands of Trump’s senior security officials, but that they cannot be counted on to be truthful individually or as a group.
No U.S. military lives were lost and targets were hit...that's why the U.S. is calling it a success. Yet, now imagine another scenario...a high value target not known to the U.S. was also at one of those locations being targeted. Yet, because terrorists have been using Signal too since the Trump administration regained office...they hacked into the signal group chat and were alerted minutes before the bombs fell...having enough time for the high value target or others to escape. Here's another scenario, what if the Trump administration, FBI, ICE, CIA are also using signal group chat to discuss taking down high value dangerous gang member leaders whom are illegal immigrants here in the United States...those gang member leaders could also be using signal group chat to stay one step ahead of law enforcement while the Trump administration continues stating no lives were lost and the raid was a success because they caught low profile gang members but they do not tell the public that they didn't capture the dangerous leaders who miraculous slipped away. Then there's the worst scenario...a U.S. politician (Republican or Democrat...they all use signal) discusses when (the time) they're moving from point A to point B...they could put themselves at risk of a possible assassination. I just do not get it...Wall Street bans the use of those types of communication apps between their employees but the U.S. government does not...what could possibly go wrong in today's technology of hackers and AI!!! wrbtrader
Let’s put it in language the Signal leakers will understand: what a bunch of pathetic sleazebags https://www.theguardian.com/comment...leak-pathetic-sleazebags-maga-fratboy-lexicon The leaking of top-level military secrets was bad enough, but I’m obsessed with Maga’s fratboy lexicon The Maga-fication of American political discourse, whichstarted, arguably, with Donald Trump mocking a disabled reporter in 2015, peaked this week with news of Pete Hegseth referring to European countries in the leaked Signal chat as “PATHETIC”, and enjoyed a detour last Tuesday when Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota and former running mate of Kamala Harris, appeared at a town hall in Wisconsin and called Elon Musk “a dipshit”. (This is not the first time he has referred to Musk this way. Right before the election last year, Walz told a crowd: “Look, Elon’s on that stage, jumping around, skipping like a dipshit.”) Parking for a moment the perfection of the phrase “skipping like a dipshit” to capture Musk’s very particular style of movement and speech, the range of what can and can’t be said in politics has clearly, radically changed. When you look back on the phrase that caused Hillary Clinton so much trouble in 2016 – “basket of deplorables” – it sounds like a quote from an 18th-century novel. “Take that, sir! You and your basket of deplorables!” Now we have Trump referring to Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic editor mistakenly added to the Signal chat, as a “sleazebag”, and Hegseth, the US defense secretary, telling JD Vance that he fully shares the vice-president’s “loathing of European free-loading”. We are millimetres away from someone shouting “asshole” across the floor of the Senate. The Signal chat, obviously, wasn’t supposed to be public, and responding to the leak this week has put the White House in a delicious bind – or rather, a bind that we might have enjoyed as delicious had it not underscored just how petrifyingly stupid Trump’s team really is. On Wednesday, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, had simultaneously to dismiss further revelations from the Atlantic designed to expose the White House lie that none of the information discussed was classified, while slamming the magazine for leaking “sensitive information”. Well, Karoline, which is it? The new information shared by the Atlantic on Wednesday was, to use government-approved language, freaking MIND-BLOWING. Two hours before the Yemeni bombing raid, Hegseth, Vance and national security adviser Mike Waltz went into extraordinary detail as to the exact timing, nature and target of the bombings. “1345: ‘Trigger Based’ F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME – also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s),” wrote Hegseth, followed by a stream of similar details. After the release of the information on Wednesday, retired military brass lined up in the US to tell cable news channels: “There is no question this is classified.” And while it remained deeply unfortunate for the Trump administration that, of all the people they might have mistakenly cc-ed into the group, it happened to be a serious journalist like Jeffrey Goldberg, given the frat boy tenor of the exchange, it could also have been a lot worse. We should, surely, be grateful that Mike Waltz, the national security adviser who organised the group on Signal, didn’t do that thing – look, we’ve all done it – where you inadvertently send a bitchy message about someone to the person in question, or in this case a message outlining a plan to drop a bomb on their head to the Houthi rebel commander target. Or as Waltz described him, in the style of a man shooting the breeze at the water cooler, “their top missile guy”. One assumes the only reason that guy wasn’t in the chat, too, is that he hadn’t gotten around to signing up for Signal. It’s not the rudeness, of course, it’s the flippancy that terrifies. The tone of the messages flying between the most powerful people in the world via an unsecure messaging app and on subjects of vital national security was that of someone idly texting with one hand while throwing and catching a hacky sack in the other. At one point, per Wednesday’s new trove, Mike Waltz wrote “typing too fast” and it must have taken every shred of collective will power in the group for no one to reply, “Sausage fingers!” Waltz, by the way, is the figure who has come closest to saying sorry for the mess, remarking on Fox News on Tuesday that he took “full responsibility” for the error. But then he ruined the vanishingly rare moment of appearing to be the only adult in the room by referring to Goldberg – a hero without whom none of us would know any of this had happened – as “scum”. And, sadly, back we went to square one.
To be honest I had never heard of Signal prior to thus incident. I'm not that deep in the political weeds. It seems not the most secure way to communicate and they should have known that. You pose some serious possibilities which could be devastating. Obviously these type of conversations should be on a much more secure network. Honestly I can give them a pass for using Signal given it's been used for quite some time. What I can't give them a pass for is not knowing who is on the text thread. WTF? I also cannot give them a pass for trying to parse words trying to excuse the mistake. It wasn't actually a " war plan"? Fuck them. It was very detailed timeliness and targets for a military operation. And then we have this dope pretending he didn't know who Goldberg was before this. Bullshit. Own it, and do better. I have been known to say if not for their double standards the left would have no standards at all. Obviously that is not limited to the left. This is bullshit and some heads need to roll. Otherwise, the Republicans and their media excuse makers can just STFU next time the democrats step on their dick.
The group chat leader (the person in control of the room) can see all participants by name or initials. Thus, if Pete Hegseth was the group chat leader (called the Admin)...he's the one who knew (can see) who was all there. For example, if he sent out 10 invitations and then 11 accepted and entered the group chat... Hegseth (the admin) should have immediately investigated who the hell was the 11th person and whom among the 10 invited that 11th person. Then again, maybe this is all not a big deal when in reality those in the signal group chat were setting up the Atlantic journalist by luring him into the signal group chat so that they could later investigate him and investigate the Atlantic magazine because they talk (write articles) very negative about Trump. Hegseth called the guy a well-known liar and it's a hoax. Trump followed-up by saying maybe there should be an investigation of a possible "break-in" into the group chat by an unauthorized person. This scenario is dangerous because it would imply the Trump administration is targeting journalists by dangling a carrot in front of them to ambush the journalists. wrbtrader