Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Jim Finley's avatar

1. The worst part is that they recklessly, offhandedly put the lives of our military people at risk by potentially telling the people they were ordering those military people to go bomb that the bombing was coming. The only reason they lucked out and escaped that tragedy was that an editor at The Atlantic was smarter, more responsible, and more patriotic than the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the CIA, and the Vice President.

2. It was illegal as hell, both the gross security violation of talking about information at that level of classification on Signal, and the fact that they're trying to run the administration off the books by avoiding the legally mandated official channels and venues for this kind of thing, thereby violating the Presidential Records Act that Trump loves so much to talk about without knowing what it says.

When I was in the service, I had a security clearance, because I was responsible - at a much, much lower and more mundane level - for classified information and crypto equipment. I never got near anything this sensitive, because there was never a need for me to know it. But the stuff I needed to access was kept inside safes, under 24-hour watch, inside a vault with a steel door with a combination lock. I had a desk in that vault, and if I'd even left a classified document unattended on my desk there, I'd probably have been relieved for cause and maybe court-martialed.

Notwithstanding the fact that I retired in 1996, if I'd pulled a stunt like this, they'd still be piping sunlight into my cell at Leavenworth on alternate Tuesdays. And I'd deserve it.

Let's see whether any of these jerks (all of whom howled for Hillary Clinton to go to jail over her private email server) are fired, let alone prosecuted. My bet is that if anything, they'll tag some poor luckless staffer to scapegoat, and hang that person out to twist in the wind.

Expand full comment
Michael Siebielec's avatar

Putting a known drunk in charge of the military isn't the smartest thing to do. Especially considering lying geriatric Trump says he's a genius and has a "very high IQ."

Expand full comment
13 more comments...

No posts