At what point will a Trump administration scandal be an actual scandal?
He’s already had numerous scandals that would have destroyed any previous presidency. But this one. … This one…
OK, so he paid hush money to a porn star, which led to 34 felony charges, bragged on TV about sexually assaulting women, was actually found guilty of sexual misconduct, and he’s been twice impeached.
None of that stopped him from winning an election (which would have been declared rigged had he lost).
Since his inauguration, he has done some things I suppose his voters wanted relating to immigration, a rollback on civil rights (which they’ve smartly branded as “woke”), and crackdowns on freedom of speech.
But nobody knew (or wanted?) the kind of brown-nosing bozos he planned to install in his cabinet. The last time around, he went for people who actually knew stuff, like former U.S. Marine Corps General John Kelly. But those experts would push back on what Trump wanted. So now we get TV commentators, conspiracy theorists and folks in charge of agencies they’ve been trying to kill.
This breach is the hill to die on.
It turns out, some of the functions of government actually take some know-how. Like making war.
You’ve probably heard about Signalgate.
On the surface, it’s just the goofiest mistake ever made by folks in charge of defense and intelligence. Someone apparently accidentally included Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg in a chat on the Signal platform that detailed the timing and weaponry planned for the recent U.S. attack on Yemen.
Journalists are not typically added to that kind of group chat.
Besides the obvious hypocrisy of “but her emails,” this amazing security breach of using Signal to text war plans reveals much more than a simple mistake.
Think about the people on that text string (besides Goldberg) – the list includes National Security Advisor Mike Waltz (who accidentally added Goldberg to the chat); Secretary of State Marco Rubio; Vice President J.D. Vance; Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard; Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent; Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth; Brian McCormack from the National Security Council; Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe; Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, probably White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller, and Trump’s nominee for head of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent.
Did none of them know that Signal is not a secure platform for that information? Did none of them know that all the chats in Signal auto-delete, making this entire conversation illegal, as this type of communication must be archived?
If none of them knew, that’s scary. If some of them knew and remained silent, that might be even scarier.
The response from the White House has made things even more troubling. The president said he didn’t know about the chat. He was out of the loop? The president. What?
Rubio said mistakes were made.
Gabbard, in a Congressional hearing, initially wouldn’t say if she was on that chat, then later acknowledged she was but insisted it was fine because the information wasn’t classified.
Hegseth and Ratcliffe also said no mistakes were made because this wasn’t classified information.
Details about timing and weaponry about an imminent attack? Not classified? If that’s not classified, what would be?
This rule by bozos is already destroying our standing in the world, as friends we once had now admit they won’t trust us with secure information. But it’s also leaving American lives at risk. High risk. How long before those security breaches lead to terrorist strikes within our borders?
THIS! This breach is the hill to die on.
No other administration has done anything this dangerously stupid. Not even close.
So far, no one has taken responsibility. They do the usual: deflect, blame the messenger, and wait for this to go away. The scandals always go away.
But not this time. We can’t let it. Journalists, do your job. Keep this story going until we get real answers.
To our elected officials: Democrats, hold your hearings, even if some may be informal, and get every detail about this incident you possibly can. And Republicans. I know you’re either so in Trump’s pocket or so afraid of his mean tweets that you feel you can’t push back. But this is your moment. Think of all the people who’ve risked their lives for their country. Risk your career and your safety.
That’s easy for me to say. They haven’t come for many journalists yet. But they always do. Authoritarians know how to attack their enemies, and that means courts and journalists.
What they don’t know how to do is govern, and if you don’t see Signalgate as a peek behind the curtain of this bumbling circus act, maybe you’ve spent too much time with the clowns.
This opinion piece reflects the views of Warren Epstein only and are not endorsed by the Pikes Peak Bulletin.
