These are not impeachment offenses, these are CRIMINAL acts that require actual fines and incarceration. None of these people has any of the so-called immunity that Trump supposedly does
Not even Vance.
Every person on the chat had to reason to know it was wrong.
They've broken numerous laws and demonstrated a reckless disregard for the safety of the very "warfighters" they use as props while cosplaying at being government officials.
All of them should be criminally investigated and prosecuted.
Why? So there would be no difference between the parties? I, personally, prefer that Democrats respect the Constitution and the rule of law. Otherwise we are in a Rand Paul-sanctioned anarchy.
I hear what you are saying, but I think compassion is the strength of Democrats and liberals, not their weakness. Ruthlessness is the absence of pity or mercy or compassion. I don't want to be like those guys.
Compassion is a strength when applied to the downtrodden, not to those hell bent on destroying democracy. To paraphrase Mr. Dooley, ‘The job of the Democrats should be to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable’."
If I understand you correctly, you’re saying because republicans jump off a bridge, democrats should jump off a bridge, too?
No. If we truly detest the lying, the dishonorable cheat-to-win at all costs philosophy, we cannot decide to use those same tactics ourselves. Because then, how would we be different, how would we be better than them??
The real question: Do we believe in our fundamental beliefs only when it’s convenient?
I'm not suggesting cheating. Democrats need to become aggressive. Can you imagine what the GOP would have done if Biden's administration had used Signal to leak plans to attack Iranian-associated targets in Iraq and Syria and Sean Hannity had been in on the conference?
The GOP had a meltdown over Hillary's emails! She had to endure TEN GOP-led investigations into Benghazi. When have the Democrats EVER been that aggressive???
Democrats naively assume Republicans will play by the rules. They haven't for several decades now. Nixon was the first to say, "It's not illegal if the President does it."
I don't support endless political investigations to score meaningless points with an uneducated base. I also don't think this is a "game" to be "played."
The rules are there to safeguard all of us, and if everyone starts disregarding them all we have is anarchy.
This is my main reasoning behind never, ever signing up for either party. I am an independent thinker and, therefore, an independent voter. I will vote for the man/woman I feel would be best suited for the job. The very last thing I want to be remembered for is running into the fire just because everyone else is doing it! Stupidity is shared by both of these parties!!!
I'm waiting for Senator Lindsey to finally clutch those pearls tight enough to give him strength to put down the bottle of Southern Comfort and come out of the closet as a proud Beta who's finally had enough of his Abusive Asshole Alpha.
Quite a fantasy there. The smarmy little git from SC has said about ten true things, in his whole political career, and will do whatever he thinks is in HIS best interests at the time.
Never happen. As Adam Kinzinger (I think it was) said at one point, "Lindsey needs a strongman to tell him what to do." Graham lost his moral compass when his last strongman, John McCain, died and he had to go looking for a new one.
Yeah where is Lindsey? He usually tramples others in the mad rush to get before the cameras. The question is does he retain any vestigial remnants of his personna as a JAG officer? Probably not, that urge to be relevant for him is stronger than such quaint ideas as honor and integrity. Irresistable even..
Yes. They should all be tried and sentenced for war crimes.
We need to investigate both how the government is communicating sensitive information and how it is keeping records. Also, the fact that Europe now knows that the US plans to make them pay for actions that they have no say over is not going over well in Europe. No one there wants to share intel, and it is hard to pretend that the buffoons in the Trump administration have legitimate interests that are shared by our former allies.
You know the current so-called Justice Department won't prosecute. Are there any state laws that have been broken that would allow a state AG to file charges?
It is time to fight fire with fire. The major news outlets including the NYtimes, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC et all need to treat all this as the emergency it is. Get those Dems listed and push back…but how? TikTok?
The corporate media have all been cowed or bought off. It will be interesting to see how the planned 5 April demonstrations are covered, if they are. Jen is right about the need for Democratic congress critters to get loud and stay loud.
I see the Tesla demonstrations as the way to say the owner is the one activating all these horrifying events and saying illiterate crap like "Social Security is a ponzi scheme." Meanwhile he's wrecking the country, he is not elected, he doesn't understand how government works, he talks and acts like a doofus. Those demonstrators are using the cars to tell him he needs to go.
I agree. It's a "you desroy us, we'll destroy you" initiative and it has been fairly effective. It could be argued that doing the same to various media outlets, especially FOX would let them know they have done the same thing. We would not be where we are now except for them. Arguing back: we've left it too late with the media and the damage is done; see you at the Tesla showroom.
Officials who have immunity from normal criminal charges can be impeached when they commit offenses for which they cannot be charged. That is the whole point of impeachment. Everyone else can simply be charged.
An interesting question would be the extent to which Presidential Immunity holds within the Executive Branch. Is it just the President who is immune from charges stemming from illegal/unconstitutional acts he performed as part of his "duties"?
That's one for lawyers. The basic principle though is that impeachment is the remedy for offenses that otherwise can't be charged due to someone's official position.
High Crimes are definitely impeachable offenses, and upon conviction by the Senate those impeached cannot be pardoned. Of course, in neither case are there any adults in charge, since both the DOJ and Congress are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Trump Crime Organization.
This clearly demonstrates that the Department of Defense should no longer obey orders from the president or any of his political appointees, and should revoke their security clearances. The DOD should go a step further and relive the president of command.
Well, as inexperienced and thoroughly incompetent people, they have an adolescent propensity to make a mess. It is a most egregious indicator that our government under these idiots has yet to reach adulthood....
"Well, as inexperienced and thoroughly incompetent people, they have an adolescent propensity to make a mess."
Granted, the information in that chat should not have been discussed. But FWIW, one of the reasons chats such as that were taking place was that the Biden administration removed the Houthis as a terrorist organization and allowed Iran to make money. We see what that led to - an alliance with Hamas after October 7th, 2023 and a major disruption of international trade. I don't think Jen and company ever called out Biden for such a "screw-up". Trump, for all his numerous faults, is trying to correct the lapses of judgement from the previous administration.
Absolutely agree. But remember that John Ratcliffe testified that when he arrived at the CIA, Signal was already installed on agency devices. This stuff has been going on for some time and there's no telling if previous administrations conducted chats on similarly sensitive topics but just weren't caught.
We need to check out Ratcliffe's honesty on that testimony. It's been alleged that this specific claim, on Signal being installed on agency devices, is inaccurate.
Flip the script. Just imagine how fast the reporter would have been charged with espionage and leaking classified war plans if he had PUBLISHED the chat word for word on the day he began to receive it. Then they would be simultaneously denying the chat was classified, and seizing the opportunity to imprison a reporter.
To Mr. Goldberg's credit, he kept the info to himself until the after the attacks took place. He also did not reveal names of any intelligence assets or methods.
What gets me is not a single one of them questioned who JG was or asked for his opinion on anything or noticed that he did not designate anyone to stand in for him. Or that he did not say a single word. When I worked, I would have known every single person on a company chat or email thread and would have instantly recognized a non-company email address. And that was 15 years ago and never involved corporate secrets.
Every day the Press Secretary needs to be asked what government business is being transacted on Signal. Also, as far as I know no one has asked whether Elon Musk was copied on that chat as a “bcc”. Was he? Back door tech is one of his specialties. And, for that matter, what part of this farce went out over Starlink?
Hillary's emails are so minor a transgression. Now we have SignalGate. Only this time it's about War Plans! Live as its happening. With one member of the team in Moscow!!!!!
We'd have to believe the truly fantastical things if we believed this was the only insecure Signal Chat among top Administration Officers. The only one? Come on. It happens again and again. I wish there was one member of the GOP with guts. Susan Collins and Joni Ernst sure got their payback. And I thought those two senators were careful about national defense. Oh well. They're all hot air.
"We'd have to believe the truly fantastical things if we believed this was the only insecure Signal Chat among top Administration Officers."
I'm still a bit curious as to how Mr. Goldberg ended up as a contact on Mr. Waltz's phone. If, as he says, he doesn't know who Mr. Goldberg is and has never talked to him. I'd like to see where that goes.
I think a lot of people are missing the real issue. Signal is pretty damn secure. These people in high places use cell phones too. cell phones are not that secure. i would rather use Signal. there was not a "breach" of the Signal channel/group. The 'Breach" was the idiots who set up the group in the first place and everyone on the chat as i think you can see everyone in the group. when i get group messages or emails, i look to see who is on so i can take into account what i do or do not say. Don't blame Signal. Blame the idiots on and associated with the group chat.
I do not know where the line is where a SCIF is required. I am sure they did not follow the rules. But we live in simplistic times and our messages have to be simple and go after the highest value target. my initial impetus to comment is there has been negativity directed at Signal and i think it is misplaced. Their security was not breached. the humans should not have used it. But even if they did, it would have worked out fine if the had not invited the Atlantic editor nor seen and identified that he was on the call and kicked him off and created a brand new group as the group was compromised.
Oh, please. You miss the central point. These texts were ordered erased. Poof. There goes the proof of the exchange. No gov’t record. That violates the law.
I don't know what the line is either. However, having one of the members in Russia, near Putin at the time, would seem to cross it. The Russians have become expert at hacking.
Here's the line: any major military plan regarding attacks or wars or other sensitive discussions occur in a special room in the Pentagon that no outsider can breach. Think of that picture of Obama and Clinton and other high officials in that room anxiously waiting to see what happened to the plan to kill Osama bin Laden. (That picture was not publicized until the outcome took place). This Signal event was the very first time in post WWII history that officials did not use the safe room for this sensitive plan (with times, places and exact names of the fighter jets and the targets).
While Signal may have end-to-end encryption, the cell phones were NOT secure. The chats were stored locally on all the participants' phones. Also, you can bet that these personal phones have been hacked by bad actors, installing back-doors that ensure that all phone convos and texts are being monitored. As a bonus, the cellphones' geo-locations are also monitored by these bad actors.
You make a good point that this breach is the fault of the people on the text link, in every way. But intelligence gatherers in other countries probably have the means to intercept even encrypted messages and if they didn't before a couple days ago, we can be sure they're laser focused on cracking Signal right now!
Absolutely. But I cannot imagine these “officials “ thought it would be okay if they used a chat group to discuss matters of national and international Security???
Signal was cracked by the Russian sigint weenies some time ago to facilitate their penetration of Ukrainian comms. And as it happens, Trump's Russian fanboy Steve Witkoff was on that chat 𝙤𝙣 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙥𝙝𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙡𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙈𝙤𝙨𝙘𝙤𝙬 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚𝙡𝙮 𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙆𝙧𝙚𝙢𝙡𝙞𝙣.
nolo contendere. They should not have been on a Signal chat. and most forms of communication are hackable and have been hacked. and Witkoff? OMG! in or over Russia. Insane!!!
I guess they’d already had their little “chat heard ‘round the world,” but the Pentagon warned (on 3/18, apparently) against using Signal and similar apps for conversations like this one:
Days after the Signal leak, the Pentagon warned the app was the target of hackers
ALSO: Isn’t it an issue that they were using Signal ON their cellphones? Tulsi Gabbard even refused to say (in the hearing yesterday) whether she was using her personal or govt-issued cell phone! And with Witkoff literally being IN MOSCOW while using Signal on HIS cellphone, several have noted that Russia was probably getting his texts stroke by stroke.
Bruce Raben: How bad does it have to get before you expect these clowns to own it?
The blame can certainly be SHARED, like with the Congresspeople whose approval was tantamount to taking someone off the street to do brain surgery or to fly a 747. But if blame were a swarm of killer ants, they'd all be dead by now.
Worse is our president Trump-de-Dump--whose criterion for excellence is that these are "nice persons." And worse because we all know by now that "nice person" for Trump is code for "they kiss my ass first thing every morning."
But that would go against Der Fuhrer's playbook of never admit your mistakes, as you stated in your first paragraph. Deny, Deflect, Distract, Demonize. You can see this theme over and over again in everything they do. Karoline Leavitt must've studied hours of Trump's speeches and press conferences to become the Trumpette that she is today. What a soulless creature.
Love land lines. Best are POTS. Plain old telephone service Copper wire with powered lines. Back in the 90s after a bad earthquake and most comms like cellular where down we had a POTS line in the maids room that still worked
Thank you for this! My son has been urging me to use Signal, as it's end-to-end encrypted. He says even the folks at Signal can't get access to texts that are sent, so if the government sepoened them, they couldn't release them. We should all get on this, in case they criminalize dissent.
There is something called PGP. Pretty good privacy. Been around for a long time. But everything is hackable. You need to be careful what you say and text. Best to not be a criminal or a bad actor. If you are debating when and how to bomb the Houthi you should use USG secure communications. Some of which are also hackable. Wait till quantum computers are a real thing and everything that is not quantum resistant will be hackable
That's "step one" in giving Trump the ability to nullify the next Presidential (or maybe even midterm) election. This will be followed by Trump threatening to disenfranchise elections conducted by States that don't meet his (unstated, illegal, irrelevant) standards.
Step two is a lawsuit by concerned State AGS getting thrown out by SCOTUS because they lack standing.
Step three will be Congressional Republicans refusing to certify results based on swing states that Trump says didn't meet his standards. SCOTUS will decline the case because there isn't enough time between election and certification for it to intervene-- Bush v. Gore and all.
That's it. That's the ballgame. It's over.
Everything else people are screeching about is irrelevant-- distractions meant to shift their focus and tire them out. This is all that really matters.
Im with you David. And have been saying this since early January. Fattus Piggus , President Musk and the hillbilly are going to cancel the mid terms. John Roberts will just whine.
Justice Roberts will only whine if he hasn't been paid enough by the oligarchs who own him. I will not be surprised if he has now "forgotten" all he was taught in law school about the Constitution.
With the comment of "President Musk", Josef Goebbels would be proud of you. To say that he's the president is a lie, too often repeated. He isn't and by birthright, cannot be. We did not elect him.
(28:03). 'he knows those computers better than anybody. All those computers, those vote-counting computers, and we ended up winning Pennsylvania in a landslide.' Very likely that hacking in 2024 included all the swing states and will be in place for the 3 eletions on 4/1/25 - 2 in FL and 1 in WI. If by chance elections are still held after that, unless by a miracle the non-red states start sanitizing their voting hardware and software - they'll be Soviet-style: the Party will win with 98% of the votes.
What you’re suggesting, David, is that Trump and company don’t care what any of us think and have no intention of ever obeying laws, procedures, protocols, or ever relinquishing power. As long as they have the muscle to punish dissenters, we are doomed. The only power great enough to stop them is the U.S. Armed Forces.
A call for a DOD military coup, and to elect veterans en masse to Congress and the presidency.
We have reached a moment in U.S. history that few of us thought possible- when patriotic Americans have just cause to call for a military coup against the president and his co-conspirators in Congress- for their crimes against the Constitution and their reckless endangerment of individuals, society, the United States government, and the soldiers of the U.S. Armed Forces.
It is the duty of every patriot who loves this country and the ideals, the principles for which it stands, to demand action from the Department of Defense to relieve them of command; to stop ICE, DOGE and whatever other secret police the president employs to terrorize the population and suppress the free exchange of ideas, of speech, the right of due process, and the right of assembly.
To petition the U.S. Armed Forces to relieve them of command, secure government facilities, redeploy fired federal workers, and hold new elections in November 2025. Elections that are fair, transparent and not corrupted by big money. This is the moment to elect veterans en masse to Congress and the presidency... Americans who have demonstrated love for country, respect for process and protocols, and who adhere to a military code of honor. They're trained to respond effectively to emergencies, to set up OPS, lines of communication, chain of command, developing contingency plans. And to coordinate with their active duty colleagues.
If you agree that urgency calls for radical, unprecedented action, please broadcast these sentiments to your followers, elected representatives, and communities. Before we're all disappeared and it's too late.
Alex Vindman pointed out that the name of this chat group, "Houthi PC Small Group", has every hallmark of a group naming convention. That is, it's likely not the first such Signal chat group involving these actors.
There will be earlier nonsecure chat groups using an identical naming convention, "XXXXX PC Small Group" where the first word identifies the specific target and the rest is identical so they can be distinguished and grouped easily.
This should be investigated even though the participants are likely to be scrubbing furiously all previous traces of their ongoing malfeasance.
Can anybody even imagine the Republican reaction had President Obama created an "Abbotabad Osama Take-Out Small Group" chat on an unsecured chat network, while accidentally looping in the publisher of the NY Times while the Navy Seals brought in that helicopter?
"To make matters worse, “President Trump's Ukraine and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff was in Moscow, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, when he was included in a group chat,” CBS reported. Given that all U.S. officials are routinely warned about the potential for hacking when in Russia, this is a particularly egregious failure to abide by rudimentary security procedures."
Oh, but this is not a problem. Witkoff LIKES Putin, thinks Putin was straight with him. So of course the nice Russian former KGB agent and present murderous autocrat war criminal wouldn't listen in on his communications. No way. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Yes, and we must PUSH THEM to be loud and unrelenting….as were Rs with Hillary! I would like, no I NEED to see Dems use their playbook. No more weak Schumer-like responses, but real strength like Jasmine or AOC.
Let’s not be naive. Why was Signals even used in their communication? These overpowered failures have access to secure lines wherever they are working and set up in their own homes. Why would they use Signals? So there would be no recording? Will Russia let us know what was said and could inform Congress? What else are they hiding? Hegseth is a DUI hire. His victim talk is boring, “it’s false”, “they are liars”, “there is no evidence”, “it’s a hoax”. Trump will just deny, because he can not take responsibility for anything. He’s a man-baby.
Trump is making it increasingly difficult for the public to keep up with his administration's insanity. Shock and awe announcements and screw ups keep us spinning trying to analyze how to react. There is only one solution. It will take mass strikes and massive protests to stop this madness.
Trump would rather play golf and act the celebrity ruler, while enriching himself freely from every transaction. As the old Mafia saying goes, "the boss has to get a taste from everything that happens." Trump uses the unqualified lackeys he has placed in powerful positions to do the dirty work, but also to take the fall when things go wrong. This arrangement provides Trump with a patsy to lay the blame on, but also gives them his reassurances of a presidential pardon, in the event of any legal culpability
Trump is fully in bed with Putin and has a fawning admiration for both the Russian ruler and the methods used to control dissent in that country. He has bent over backward to ensure a favourable result for Russia in the peace negotiations with Ukraine. His current cease fire proposal allows the U.S. to resume trade with Russia and lift sanctions. it is a betrayal of Ukraine pure and simple.
Check my free substack.
There are several new articles in my notes to check out, for further details.
We could get some clout back next Tuesday. It’s not too late to help the Democratic candidates running for special House elections in FL-1 and FL-6 and NY-21. Yes, those have been red districts, but the people there know they’ve been betrayed.
I’m not so sure. I just saw some poll numbers from NJ. One of them had Trump at 53% approval… in dark blue New Jersey. It’s beyond me how even one person is still supporting this clown but I guess Trump supporters are not the types to admit they made a mistake.
Polls haven't been trustworthy for years. If any pollster can show a track record of successful predictions for their last 3 election polling, I'll believe them. But I don't have to, none can. S
We need to be calling out specific Senators, regardless of party, who voted to confirm each of these clowns and hold them accountable for this inexcusable joke of a Cabinet. Since the border and immigration are so important, why don’t they replace the Border Patrol with surveillance via the Signal app? They could eliminate so much waste, fraud and abuse! The American people need to start showing up at the doorstep of local GOP Reps and Senators’ offices and pressure the media to show up. And start showing up en masse in DC at the Capitol. The crowd sizes will be tremendous and beautiful, at levels no one has ever seen before.
Canada's new PM already brought that up. In the next days, you'll see cascading sentiments among our allies that 'now we have proof of the folly of trusting America.' Chinese and Russian counterintelligence must be holding drunken orgy parties in celebration...
These are not impeachment offenses, these are CRIMINAL acts that require actual fines and incarceration. None of these people has any of the so-called immunity that Trump supposedly does
Not even Vance.
Every person on the chat had to reason to know it was wrong.
Traitorous acts all..
YES.
They've broken numerous laws and demonstrated a reckless disregard for the safety of the very "warfighters" they use as props while cosplaying at being government officials.
All of them should be criminally investigated and prosecuted.
If found guilty they should be imprisoned.
The Republicans have no regard for the law. The Democrats should have become just as ruthless decades ago.
Why? So there would be no difference between the parties? I, personally, prefer that Democrats respect the Constitution and the rule of law. Otherwise we are in a Rand Paul-sanctioned anarchy.
One can be ruthless while not necessarily corrupt and dishonest. That would be the distinction.
I hear what you are saying, but I think compassion is the strength of Democrats and liberals, not their weakness. Ruthlessness is the absence of pity or mercy or compassion. I don't want to be like those guys.
Compassion is a strength when applied to the downtrodden, not to those hell bent on destroying democracy. To paraphrase Mr. Dooley, ‘The job of the Democrats should be to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable’."
https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2014/today-in-media-history-mr-dooley-the-job-of-the-newspaper-is-to-comfort-the-afflicted-and-afflict-the-comfortable/
No, so the Democrats could stopped being rolled.
It's not a game.
No, it isn't, but the Democrats still think it's a game they can win. That needs to stop.
Do you have any concrete, viable suggestions?
If I understand you correctly, you’re saying because republicans jump off a bridge, democrats should jump off a bridge, too?
No. If we truly detest the lying, the dishonorable cheat-to-win at all costs philosophy, we cannot decide to use those same tactics ourselves. Because then, how would we be different, how would we be better than them??
The real question: Do we believe in our fundamental beliefs only when it’s convenient?
I'm not suggesting cheating. Democrats need to become aggressive. Can you imagine what the GOP would have done if Biden's administration had used Signal to leak plans to attack Iranian-associated targets in Iraq and Syria and Sean Hannity had been in on the conference?
The GOP had a meltdown over Hillary's emails! She had to endure TEN GOP-led investigations into Benghazi. When have the Democrats EVER been that aggressive???
Democrats naively assume Republicans will play by the rules. They haven't for several decades now. Nixon was the first to say, "It's not illegal if the President does it."
I don't support endless political investigations to score meaningless points with an uneducated base. I also don't think this is a "game" to be "played."
The rules are there to safeguard all of us, and if everyone starts disregarding them all we have is anarchy.
Yet, endless political investigations are what we get from Republicans.
We have no safeguards; indeed, many of us never had them. We have anarchy in the form of the Trump administration.
This is my main reasoning behind never, ever signing up for either party. I am an independent thinker and, therefore, an independent voter. I will vote for the man/woman I feel would be best suited for the job. The very last thing I want to be remembered for is running into the fire just because everyone else is doing it! Stupidity is shared by both of these parties!!!
The ones LEAST suited for the jobs will invariably be Republicans.
Sometimes you need to run into withering fire to attack the enemy.
And that I can do perfectly well from a sneak attack position.
I'm waiting for Senator Lindsey to finally clutch those pearls tight enough to give him strength to put down the bottle of Southern Comfort and come out of the closet as a proud Beta who's finally had enough of his Abusive Asshole Alpha.
Well, one can fantasize, I suppose....
That is a fantasy. Maybe if he clutches the pearls while he slugs the MAGA Koolaid he'll aspirate and expire? His sell by date surely ended long ago.
I can think of someone else's sell by date which should have ended LONG ago.
Yep, he’s putrid with MAGAts and they’re infesting the executive office!
Quite a fantasy there. The smarmy little git from SC has said about ten true things, in his whole political career, and will do whatever he thinks is in HIS best interests at the time.
In your dreams. Miz Lindsey's head is so far up Trump's ass the pearls are inaccessible.
Well said!!!!!
"I'm waiting for Senator Lindsey to finally clutch those pearls..."
If he can find them.
he is looking a little puffy....
Never happen. As Adam Kinzinger (I think it was) said at one point, "Lindsey needs a strongman to tell him what to do." Graham lost his moral compass when his last strongman, John McCain, died and he had to go looking for a new one.
Yeah where is Lindsey? He usually tramples others in the mad rush to get before the cameras. The question is does he retain any vestigial remnants of his personna as a JAG officer? Probably not, that urge to be relevant for him is stronger than such quaint ideas as honor and integrity. Irresistable even..
🤣
Yes. They should all be tried and sentenced for war crimes.
We need to investigate both how the government is communicating sensitive information and how it is keeping records. Also, the fact that Europe now knows that the US plans to make them pay for actions that they have no say over is not going over well in Europe. No one there wants to share intel, and it is hard to pretend that the buffoons in the Trump administration have legitimate interests that are shared by our former allies.
Another example of extortion!
You know the current so-called Justice Department won't prosecute. Are there any state laws that have been broken that would allow a state AG to file charges?
Pam Bondi is too busy castigating Jasmine Crockett for daring to help Musk's stocks in Tesla tank.
Don’t you mean Pam Bondage, the former porn star?
yes, the state of SANITY is totally broken......
these people are all known idiots and tulsi is a known collaborator so duh.
looks like hegseth is not the only one with a drinking prob in DC.
brain surgery does not go well when you have fired all the surgeons
A perfect metaphor. Thank you.
Except that The Orange Ogre would just pardon them. At least he cannot 'unimpeach' them.
He can't pardon them for state crimes, so start looking for some.
It is time to fight fire with fire. The major news outlets including the NYtimes, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC et all need to treat all this as the emergency it is. Get those Dems listed and push back…but how? TikTok?
The corporate media have all been cowed or bought off. It will be interesting to see how the planned 5 April demonstrations are covered, if they are. Jen is right about the need for Democratic congress critters to get loud and stay loud.
I've wondered why demonstrations have taken place at Tesla dealerships and not FOX affiliates and WaPo for that matter. They're complicit.
I see the Tesla demonstrations as the way to say the owner is the one activating all these horrifying events and saying illiterate crap like "Social Security is a ponzi scheme." Meanwhile he's wrecking the country, he is not elected, he doesn't understand how government works, he talks and acts like a doofus. Those demonstrators are using the cars to tell him he needs to go.
I agree. It's a "you desroy us, we'll destroy you" initiative and it has been fairly effective. It could be argued that doing the same to various media outlets, especially FOX would let them know they have done the same thing. We would not be where we are now except for them. Arguing back: we've left it too late with the media and the damage is done; see you at the Tesla showroom.
Officials who have immunity from normal criminal charges can be impeached when they commit offenses for which they cannot be charged. That is the whole point of impeachment. Everyone else can simply be charged.
An interesting question would be the extent to which Presidential Immunity holds within the Executive Branch. Is it just the President who is immune from charges stemming from illegal/unconstitutional acts he performed as part of his "duties"?
That's one for lawyers. The basic principle though is that impeachment is the remedy for offenses that otherwise can't be charged due to someone's official position.
High Crimes are definitely impeachable offenses, and upon conviction by the Senate those impeached cannot be pardoned. Of course, in neither case are there any adults in charge, since both the DOJ and Congress are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Trump Crime Organization.
You are so right but of course, trump will just pardon them. Seems like we hit a brick wall where ever we turn
This clearly demonstrates that the Department of Defense should no longer obey orders from the president or any of his political appointees, and should revoke their security clearances. The DOD should go a step further and relive the president of command.
Sadly the Tangerine Tyrant would pardon them. But they should all be wearing orange jumpsuits.
Absolutely.
Not that it would actually get enough votes, but I'm surprised there haven't been any calls for Hegseth's impeachment.
Well, as inexperienced and thoroughly incompetent people, they have an adolescent propensity to make a mess. It is a most egregious indicator that our government under these idiots has yet to reach adulthood....
"Well, as inexperienced and thoroughly incompetent people, they have an adolescent propensity to make a mess."
Granted, the information in that chat should not have been discussed. But FWIW, one of the reasons chats such as that were taking place was that the Biden administration removed the Houthis as a terrorist organization and allowed Iran to make money. We see what that led to - an alliance with Hamas after October 7th, 2023 and a major disruption of international trade. I don't think Jen and company ever called out Biden for such a "screw-up". Trump, for all his numerous faults, is trying to correct the lapses of judgement from the previous administration.
Yeah, whenever something happens that makes Republicans look bad, one can always open the bottom drawer and pull out “It was Biden’s fault.”
Chats like this should/must take place but only using the existing communication devices that are impenetrable.
Absolutely agree. But remember that John Ratcliffe testified that when he arrived at the CIA, Signal was already installed on agency devices. This stuff has been going on for some time and there's no telling if previous administrations conducted chats on similarly sensitive topics but just weren't caught.
We need to check out Ratcliffe's honesty on that testimony. It's been alleged that this specific claim, on Signal being installed on agency devices, is inaccurate.
Well hopefully some employee from the Biden administration with knowledge can shed some light on that.
I don't know this as a fact, but I bet that Congressional Republicans in intelligece committees agree with you, Stu.
Get them on the record. https://jerryweiss.substack.com/
Flip the script. Just imagine how fast the reporter would have been charged with espionage and leaking classified war plans if he had PUBLISHED the chat word for word on the day he began to receive it. Then they would be simultaneously denying the chat was classified, and seizing the opportunity to imprison a reporter.
To Mr. Goldberg's credit, he kept the info to himself until the after the attacks took place. He also did not reveal names of any intelligence assets or methods.
What gets me is not a single one of them questioned who JG was or asked for his opinion on anything or noticed that he did not designate anyone to stand in for him. Or that he did not say a single word. When I worked, I would have known every single person on a company chat or email thread and would have instantly recognized a non-company email address. And that was 15 years ago and never involved corporate secrets.
Every day the Press Secretary needs to be asked what government business is being transacted on Signal. Also, as far as I know no one has asked whether Elon Musk was copied on that chat as a “bcc”. Was he? Back door tech is one of his specialties. And, for that matter, what part of this farce went out over Starlink?
Hillary's emails are so minor a transgression. Now we have SignalGate. Only this time it's about War Plans! Live as its happening. With one member of the team in Moscow!!!!!
We'd have to believe the truly fantastical things if we believed this was the only insecure Signal Chat among top Administration Officers. The only one? Come on. It happens again and again. I wish there was one member of the GOP with guts. Susan Collins and Joni Ernst sure got their payback. And I thought those two senators were careful about national defense. Oh well. They're all hot air.
hope everyone is writing and calling these gals and thom tillis and and and
Republicans have neither guts nor spines.
"We'd have to believe the truly fantastical things if we believed this was the only insecure Signal Chat among top Administration Officers."
I'm still a bit curious as to how Mr. Goldberg ended up as a contact on Mr. Waltz's phone. If, as he says, he doesn't know who Mr. Goldberg is and has never talked to him. I'd like to see where that goes.
I think a lot of people are missing the real issue. Signal is pretty damn secure. These people in high places use cell phones too. cell phones are not that secure. i would rather use Signal. there was not a "breach" of the Signal channel/group. The 'Breach" was the idiots who set up the group in the first place and everyone on the chat as i think you can see everyone in the group. when i get group messages or emails, i look to see who is on so i can take into account what i do or do not say. Don't blame Signal. Blame the idiots on and associated with the group chat.
But issues of this order are to be discussed in security clad environments ONLY. There's specific SCIF use requirements.
I do not know where the line is where a SCIF is required. I am sure they did not follow the rules. But we live in simplistic times and our messages have to be simple and go after the highest value target. my initial impetus to comment is there has been negativity directed at Signal and i think it is misplaced. Their security was not breached. the humans should not have used it. But even if they did, it would have worked out fine if the had not invited the Atlantic editor nor seen and identified that he was on the call and kicked him off and created a brand new group as the group was compromised.
Oh, please. You miss the central point. These texts were ordered erased. Poof. There goes the proof of the exchange. No gov’t record. That violates the law.
I don't know what the line is either. However, having one of the members in Russia, near Putin at the time, would seem to cross it. The Russians have become expert at hacking.
Here's the line: any major military plan regarding attacks or wars or other sensitive discussions occur in a special room in the Pentagon that no outsider can breach. Think of that picture of Obama and Clinton and other high officials in that room anxiously waiting to see what happened to the plan to kill Osama bin Laden. (That picture was not publicized until the outcome took place). This Signal event was the very first time in post WWII history that officials did not use the safe room for this sensitive plan (with times, places and exact names of the fighter jets and the targets).
While Signal may have end-to-end encryption, the cell phones were NOT secure. The chats were stored locally on all the participants' phones. Also, you can bet that these personal phones have been hacked by bad actors, installing back-doors that ensure that all phone convos and texts are being monitored. As a bonus, the cellphones' geo-locations are also monitored by these bad actors.
What could possibly go wrong ?
You make a good point that this breach is the fault of the people on the text link, in every way. But intelligence gatherers in other countries probably have the means to intercept even encrypted messages and if they didn't before a couple days ago, we can be sure they're laser focused on cracking Signal right now!
Absolutely. But I cannot imagine these “officials “ thought it would be okay if they used a chat group to discuss matters of national and international Security???
Signal was cracked by the Russian sigint weenies some time ago to facilitate their penetration of Ukrainian comms. And as it happens, Trump's Russian fanboy Steve Witkoff was on that chat 𝙤𝙣 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙥𝙝𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙡𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙈𝙤𝙨𝙘𝙤𝙬 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚𝙡𝙮 𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙆𝙧𝙚𝙢𝙡𝙞𝙣.
Nuff said.
nolo contendere. They should not have been on a Signal chat. and most forms of communication are hackable and have been hacked. and Witkoff? OMG! in or over Russia. Insane!!!
I guess they’d already had their little “chat heard ‘round the world,” but the Pentagon warned (on 3/18, apparently) against using Signal and similar apps for conversations like this one:
Days after the Signal leak, the Pentagon warned the app was the target of hackers
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/25/nx-s1-5339801/pentagon-email-signal-vulnerability
ALSO: Isn’t it an issue that they were using Signal ON their cellphones? Tulsi Gabbard even refused to say (in the hearing yesterday) whether she was using her personal or govt-issued cell phone! And with Witkoff literally being IN MOSCOW while using Signal on HIS cellphone, several have noted that Russia was probably getting his texts stroke by stroke.
You can bet these assholes were using their own phones, not burner phones. Especially Witkoff in Moscow "dialing in" from his hotel room.
The GRU must have had to restrain themselves from asphyxiating with laughter while they broke into Signal. Not 'secure' any more....
Bruce Raben: How bad does it have to get before you expect these clowns to own it?
The blame can certainly be SHARED, like with the Congresspeople whose approval was tantamount to taking someone off the street to do brain surgery or to fly a 747. But if blame were a swarm of killer ants, they'd all be dead by now.
Worse is our president Trump-de-Dump--whose criterion for excellence is that these are "nice persons." And worse because we all know by now that "nice person" for Trump is code for "they kiss my ass first thing every morning."
Deny, deny, deny. from Roy Cohen who was Trumps mentor. Did you see Gabbi and the others testimony before Congress. remarkable..
they all should have owned it and just said, "we fucked up. made a mistake, wont happen again"
But that would go against Der Fuhrer's playbook of never admit your mistakes, as you stated in your first paragraph. Deny, Deflect, Distract, Demonize. You can see this theme over and over again in everything they do. Karoline Leavitt must've studied hours of Trump's speeches and press conferences to become the Trumpette that she is today. What a soulless creature.
If they only understood that, and knew how…
They’ll never Own It
I don’t care how secure Signal may be. It’s not the channel to use when discussing war plans. Period.
Hegseth violated the Pentagon’s recently-issued directive against using Signal. Apparently there’s an exploit, which the Russians have been using to intercept Ukrainian Signal communications. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/25/signal-app-leaked-war-plans?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
SIGNAL has also been proven to be hackable by the Russians, so not as secure as you think. Especially when discussing intelligence issues.
I have a land line and I know they should have been in a sciff....not sure what you are saying.....
Love land lines. Best are POTS. Plain old telephone service Copper wire with powered lines. Back in the 90s after a bad earthquake and most comms like cellular where down we had a POTS line in the maids room that still worked
exactly !
had trouble with my cell once and the rep said how are you calling me if your cell isn't working..........
Thank you for this! My son has been urging me to use Signal, as it's end-to-end encrypted. He says even the folks at Signal can't get access to texts that are sent, so if the government sepoened them, they couldn't release them. We should all get on this, in case they criminalize dissent.
Bruce Raben said: "Signal is pretty damn secure."
Right...
Hegseth was not qualified ethically or capability wise. Steve Feinberg is qualified as I think deputy director acquisitions DoD
talk about DEI...
There is something called PGP. Pretty good privacy. Been around for a long time. But everything is hackable. You need to be careful what you say and text. Best to not be a criminal or a bad actor. If you are debating when and how to bomb the Houthi you should use USG secure communications. Some of which are also hackable. Wait till quantum computers are a real thing and everything that is not quantum resistant will be hackable
Please. None of this matters. The only thing that does is this: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-elections-executive-order-citizenship
That's "step one" in giving Trump the ability to nullify the next Presidential (or maybe even midterm) election. This will be followed by Trump threatening to disenfranchise elections conducted by States that don't meet his (unstated, illegal, irrelevant) standards.
Step two is a lawsuit by concerned State AGS getting thrown out by SCOTUS because they lack standing.
Step three will be Congressional Republicans refusing to certify results based on swing states that Trump says didn't meet his standards. SCOTUS will decline the case because there isn't enough time between election and certification for it to intervene-- Bush v. Gore and all.
That's it. That's the ballgame. It's over.
Everything else people are screeching about is irrelevant-- distractions meant to shift their focus and tire them out. This is all that really matters.
Im with you David. And have been saying this since early January. Fattus Piggus , President Musk and the hillbilly are going to cancel the mid terms. John Roberts will just whine.
Justice Roberts will only whine if he hasn't been paid enough by the oligarchs who own him. I will not be surprised if he has now "forgotten" all he was taught in law school about the Constitution.
With the comment of "President Musk", Josef Goebbels would be proud of you. To say that he's the president is a lie, too often repeated. He isn't and by birthright, cannot be. We did not elect him.
You leave out all the hacking of tabulation software that Trump, at his Jan 19 rally, admitted Musk did for him. See transcript and listen to audio at
https://www.rev.com/transcripts/trump-rally-ahead-of-inaguration
(28:03). 'he knows those computers better than anybody. All those computers, those vote-counting computers, and we ended up winning Pennsylvania in a landslide.' Very likely that hacking in 2024 included all the swing states and will be in place for the 3 eletions on 4/1/25 - 2 in FL and 1 in WI. If by chance elections are still held after that, unless by a miracle the non-red states start sanitizing their voting hardware and software - they'll be Soviet-style: the Party will win with 98% of the votes.
If the Trump admin does it, it's legal. If Dems do it, it's illegal. Very simple.
What you’re suggesting, David, is that Trump and company don’t care what any of us think and have no intention of ever obeying laws, procedures, protocols, or ever relinquishing power. As long as they have the muscle to punish dissenters, we are doomed. The only power great enough to stop them is the U.S. Armed Forces.
A call for a DOD military coup, and to elect veterans en masse to Congress and the presidency.
We have reached a moment in U.S. history that few of us thought possible- when patriotic Americans have just cause to call for a military coup against the president and his co-conspirators in Congress- for their crimes against the Constitution and their reckless endangerment of individuals, society, the United States government, and the soldiers of the U.S. Armed Forces.
It is the duty of every patriot who loves this country and the ideals, the principles for which it stands, to demand action from the Department of Defense to relieve them of command; to stop ICE, DOGE and whatever other secret police the president employs to terrorize the population and suppress the free exchange of ideas, of speech, the right of due process, and the right of assembly.
To petition the U.S. Armed Forces to relieve them of command, secure government facilities, redeploy fired federal workers, and hold new elections in November 2025. Elections that are fair, transparent and not corrupted by big money. This is the moment to elect veterans en masse to Congress and the presidency... Americans who have demonstrated love for country, respect for process and protocols, and who adhere to a military code of honor. They're trained to respond effectively to emergencies, to set up OPS, lines of communication, chain of command, developing contingency plans. And to coordinate with their active duty colleagues.
If you agree that urgency calls for radical, unprecedented action, please broadcast these sentiments to your followers, elected representatives, and communities. Before we're all disappeared and it's too late.
Alex Vindman pointed out that the name of this chat group, "Houthi PC Small Group", has every hallmark of a group naming convention. That is, it's likely not the first such Signal chat group involving these actors.
There will be earlier nonsecure chat groups using an identical naming convention, "XXXXX PC Small Group" where the first word identifies the specific target and the rest is identical so they can be distinguished and grouped easily.
This should be investigated even though the participants are likely to be scrubbing furiously all previous traces of their ongoing malfeasance.
Can anybody even imagine the Republican reaction had President Obama created an "Abbotabad Osama Take-Out Small Group" chat on an unsecured chat network, while accidentally looping in the publisher of the NY Times while the Navy Seals brought in that helicopter?
"To make matters worse, “President Trump's Ukraine and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff was in Moscow, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, when he was included in a group chat,” CBS reported. Given that all U.S. officials are routinely warned about the potential for hacking when in Russia, this is a particularly egregious failure to abide by rudimentary security procedures."
Oh, but this is not a problem. Witkoff LIKES Putin, thinks Putin was straight with him. So of course the nice Russian former KGB agent and present murderous autocrat war criminal wouldn't listen in on his communications. No way. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Mary: Don't you know that Putin is "a man of his word"? Sort of like Trump.
BTW, YAY for PENSYLVANIA!
Like Shrubby Bush he looked deep into his eyes?
Yes, and we must PUSH THEM to be loud and unrelenting….as were Rs with Hillary! I would like, no I NEED to see Dems use their playbook. No more weak Schumer-like responses, but real strength like Jasmine or AOC.
Let’s not be naive. Why was Signals even used in their communication? These overpowered failures have access to secure lines wherever they are working and set up in their own homes. Why would they use Signals? So there would be no recording? Will Russia let us know what was said and could inform Congress? What else are they hiding? Hegseth is a DUI hire. His victim talk is boring, “it’s false”, “they are liars”, “there is no evidence”, “it’s a hoax”. Trump will just deny, because he can not take responsibility for anything. He’s a man-baby.
Love "DUI hire."
I can’t take credit, my progressive son turned me on to it!😂
How in the world are giving the place, method and time of our Yemen strikes not war plans? This is not a "glitch", it's dangerous incompetence.
What about deliberate incompetence?
Trump is making it increasingly difficult for the public to keep up with his administration's insanity. Shock and awe announcements and screw ups keep us spinning trying to analyze how to react. There is only one solution. It will take mass strikes and massive protests to stop this madness.
Trump would rather play golf and act the celebrity ruler, while enriching himself freely from every transaction. As the old Mafia saying goes, "the boss has to get a taste from everything that happens." Trump uses the unqualified lackeys he has placed in powerful positions to do the dirty work, but also to take the fall when things go wrong. This arrangement provides Trump with a patsy to lay the blame on, but also gives them his reassurances of a presidential pardon, in the event of any legal culpability
Trump is fully in bed with Putin and has a fawning admiration for both the Russian ruler and the methods used to control dissent in that country. He has bent over backward to ensure a favourable result for Russia in the peace negotiations with Ukraine. His current cease fire proposal allows the U.S. to resume trade with Russia and lift sanctions. it is a betrayal of Ukraine pure and simple.
Check my free substack.
There are several new articles in my notes to check out, for further details.
We could get some clout back next Tuesday. It’s not too late to help the Democratic candidates running for special House elections in FL-1 and FL-6 and NY-21. Yes, those have been red districts, but the people there know they’ve been betrayed.
I’m not so sure. I just saw some poll numbers from NJ. One of them had Trump at 53% approval… in dark blue New Jersey. It’s beyond me how even one person is still supporting this clown but I guess Trump supporters are not the types to admit they made a mistake.
Polls haven't been trustworthy for years. If any pollster can show a track record of successful predictions for their last 3 election polling, I'll believe them. But I don't have to, none can. S
lets get deeper into donating and all the other things possible.
We need to be calling out specific Senators, regardless of party, who voted to confirm each of these clowns and hold them accountable for this inexcusable joke of a Cabinet. Since the border and immigration are so important, why don’t they replace the Border Patrol with surveillance via the Signal app? They could eliminate so much waste, fraud and abuse! The American people need to start showing up at the doorstep of local GOP Reps and Senators’ offices and pressure the media to show up. And start showing up en masse in DC at the Capitol. The crowd sizes will be tremendous and beautiful, at levels no one has ever seen before.
My concern is the secrecy of our allies communications with this clown car of incompetents.
Canada's new PM already brought that up. In the next days, you'll see cascading sentiments among our allies that 'now we have proof of the folly of trusting America.' Chinese and Russian counterintelligence must be holding drunken orgy parties in celebration...
Excellent. Hold us at arms’ length for the duration. (Pun intended.)