Signalgate, Part One

That “Signalgate” even happened is a galactic SNAFU. That nothing will probably happen to its perpetrators is a Sign of the End Times.

Welcome to another installment of Life Its Ownself. This is Part One of a two-part essay on the festering failure of national security known as Signalgate. Part Two continues tomorrow — appropriately, April fools Day.

If you like what you read, please 1) smash the Like button at the bottom of this installment, 2) subscribe to this newsletter, and 3) tell your 1,000 best friends to read and subscribe. Also, feel free to comment below. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

But first, your moment of Zen … The setting moon hovers above the backlit clouds in the west, Sunday, March 30, 2025, Marathon, Texas.

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Monday, March 31, 2025

Quote of the Day:

“This is a very complicated case, Maude. A lot of ins, a lot of outs. Fortunately, I'm adhering to a pretty strict drug regimen to keep my mind limber.”

Jeff Bridges as “The Big Lebowski”

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There are two great debacles developing with “Signalgate.” The first is the embarrassing incompetence of the top tier of our national security apparatus. As Garrett Graff has pointed out in a post on his excellent Doomsday Scenario blog, there are actually five scandals, any of which would trigger DOJ/FBI criminal investigations, congressional hearings and firings in a normal country:

1. A massive leak of sensitive information

2. Multiple acts of perjury by top Administration officials

3. Criminal violations of the Federal Records Act

4. An IT scandal at the top of the federal government

5. War crimes

The second, and more serious, debacle is the inability of the American people, hopelessly trapped in vicious partisanship and deprived of all critical faculties by years of mis- and disinformation, to objectively evaluate the magnitude of the scandal – a terrifying case study for the world of the decline of American seriousness on the global stage. Even as Americans fail to understand the lessons of Signalgate and will have forgotten it in a month, our allies and enemies are already implementing those lessons.

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[This is] a terrifying case study for the world of the decline of American seriousness on the global stage. Even as Americans fail to understand the lessons of Signalgate and will have forgotten it in a month, our allies — and enemies — are studying and implementing those lessons.

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The facts of the matter are blissfully straightforward. If we are to believe The Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg – and despite withering personal attacks, no one has successfully challenged his reporting – on March 13 he was invited by National Security Adviser Mike Waltz to join a Signal chat group called “Houthi PC small group.” It included the secretaries of state and defense, as well as other Cabinet-level officials and high-level national security staffers – a total of 18 people.

So far, so weird. Over the next two days, though, the group chat seriously discussed the pros, cons and timing of an attack on Houthi bases across Yemen. And on Saturday, March 15, the group received a “TEAM UPDATE” which, according to Goldberg, “contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.” Goldberg was an active participant in none of these discussions.

Goldberg published his article on Monday morning. As you might imagine, the reaction was seismic: a journalist – and one loathed by the Trumpistas – had somehow been included in the most sensitive discussions on national security and foreign policy, and then provided real-time information as a military attack was planned and executed. Such a thing had never been heard of, said the wise old hands of the foreign policy establishment.

Trumpworld, for whom mendacity is instinctive the way eating its own feces is instinctive for sone rodents, jumped on the story.

• The story is a complete fabrication, a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing. “I happen to know the guy is a total sleazebag,” said the President of the United States. “The Atlantic is a failed magazine, does very, very poorly. Nobody gives a damn about it,”

• The story is true, but Goldberg somehow connived his way onto the Signal chart group.

• The story is true, but no confidential information was discussed. Tulsi Gabbard, DNI, at a congressional hearing on Tuesday: “There was no classified material that was shared in that Signal group.” John Radcliffe, CIA, covering his ass at the same hearing: “My communications, to be clear, in the Signal message group were entirely permissible and lawful and did not include classified information.” And President Trump, a well-known savant on how to declassify information: “It wasn’t classified information.”

All this dissembling led The Atlantic, on Wednesday, to publish the whole text chain, including the juvenile rants of Vice President Vance, Hegseth and Dark Prince Stephen Miller about how Europe should have to pay for U.S. interdiction of Houthi incursions into Middle Eastern shipping lanes.

Trump apologists then shifted to parsing the difference between “war plans” and “battle plans.” Judge for yourself:

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Once upon a time in America, including a journalist on a top secret group chat about impending military action would have been considered a “f*ckup.” The public would be outraged. Congress would conduct hearings. The DOJ and FBI would announce an investigation, and perhaps a special counsel would be appointed. Heads would be mounted on stakes outside the White House lawn, perhaps even recognizable ones.

But this is the era of Donald Trump, of “deny, deny, deny,” of “never admit responsibility,” of “never back down.” It’s a foregone conclusion he will never admit to any part of the responsibility, but it will be interesting to see if the heat gets bad enough that he must drop Waltz or even Hegseth into the grease. Waltz would be an easy target; Trump has no longtime loyalty to him, and can replace his with another apparatchik. But Hegseth (for now) sits atop Trump’s project of eliminating the “woke” from the military (e.g., deleting mention of the Tuskegee Airmen from the DOD website), dismantling American military power in Europe and other places, and reaching new security “understandings” with despots in Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. (Today’s rumor is, Waltz’s deputy may take the fall for mistakenly inviting Goldberg onto the chat group.)

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So, it is possible, even likely, that no one will get fired for the biggest security breach in this century, and certainly no one of consequence. The Administration will keep bumbling along, more interested in trolling the libs than in the smooth functioning of the nation’s foreign policy and national security establishments.

We used to expect so much more of our leaders, and of ourselves.