By now you know this story in all of its effulgent fuckitude: “The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans” - The Atlantic
Happy Tuesday.
And that’s where Olivia Troye and I begin today’s “To the Contrary” Podcast. You can listen/watch right here, or: Watch on YouTube / Listen (and subscribe) on Apple/ Spotify / iHeart / RSS Feed.
The risk of publishing controversial truths…
Global reactions to sensitive U.S. disclosures…
Strategic intimidation; Law firms under pressure
**
Olivia has a much deeper dive in her Substack newsletter: National Security, Emoji Style:
This wasn't a parody or a simple leak—it was a catastrophic failure of judgment and security that offers a first-hand chilling glimpse into the current administration's dangerous recklessness.
This Is Not Normal—and It's Definitely Not Safe.
**
I had some quick thoughts yesterday afternoon…
An epic cock-up of incompetence
Aaron Blake has some questions:
The situation raises all kinds of issues. Among them:
*Why are officials trading such sensitive information on a platform like Signal, which doesn’t appear to be authorized for such communications?
*How is it possible that someone who wasn’t authorized to view them was included and nobody noticed?
*Given that the Signal messages were scheduled to automatically disappear after a period of time, how does that not violate federal records laws that require such communications to be preserved?
*And how does the White House square this apparent national security breach with Trump’s long-running criticisms of Hillary Clinton for using a private email server? Trump once said Clinton should be in jail, claiming she endangered national security.
**
John Ganz on Substack: “The Worst and the Dimmest”
My high-level takeaway is “what you see is what you get.
These guys might look like idiots, and talk like idiots, but don’t let that fool you: they really are idiots. I suppose there is a small possibility that this was some kind of “op” — an intentional leak to Goldberg and the Atlantic — but to what end? It makes them look amateurish and bad at their jobs. To a president obsessed with image, this is even more important than the actual national security implications.
**
Pete Buttigieg also had some thoughts:
The Honor of Pete Hegseth?
David French: If Pete Hegseth Had Any Honor, He Would Resign - The New York Times
There is not an officer alive whose career would survive a security breach like that. It would normally result in instant consequences (relief from command, for example) followed by a comprehensive investigation and, potentially, criminal charges.
Federal law makes it a crime when a person — through gross negligence — removes information “relating to the national defense” from “its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted or destroyed.”
It’s way too soon to say whether Hegseth’s incompetence is also criminal, but I raise the possibility to demonstrate the sheer magnitude of the reported mistake. A security breach that significant requires a thorough investigation.
Nothing destroys a leader’s credibility with soldiers more thoroughly than hypocrisy or double standards. When leaders break the rules that they impose on soldiers, they break the bond of trust between soldiers and commanders. The best commanders I knew did not ask a soldier to comply with a rule that didn’t also apply to them. The best commanders led by example.
What example has Hegseth set? That he’s careless, and when you’re careless in the military, people can die. If he had any honor at all, he would resign.
French is right. But Hegseth? Honor? AYFKM?
Even though the administration had already confirmed the story, Hegseth chose to deny it… And, in authentic Trumpian fashion, couched his lie in a string of insults.
“Can you share how your information about war plans against the Houthis in Yemen was shared with a journalist in The Atlantic?” a reporter asked Hegseth during a gaggle at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. “And were those details classified?”
As the reporter asked her question, Hegseth emitted a small chuckle:
HEGSETH: So, you’re talking about a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who’s made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again to include the, I don’t know, the hoaxes of Russia, Russia, Russia! Or the fine people on both sides hoax. Or suckers and losers hoax. So, this is a guy that peddles in garbage. This is what he does….
REPORTER: Why were those details shared on Signal and how did you learn that a journalist was privy to the targets, the
HEGSETH: I’ve heard it was characterized. Nobody was texting war plans. And that’s all I have to say about that. Thank you.
Exit take: This is what you get when you make a dipsomaniacal chode like Hegseth your SecDef.
BONUS: If only Brit had been warned:
Tuesday dogs
Big brothers. Little brothers.
Share this post