An informative signal

Washington is abuzz with the revelation that Trump Administration officials started a group chat on Signal to discuss war plans against the Houthi rebels in Yemen that accidentally included Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic. Some Trump defenders insist seven-dimensional chess is at play. Democrats insist the secretary of defense must resign. The episode is one of many Rorschach moments in how one sees the Trump Administration.

First, Signal is a well-respected app for sending end-to-end encrypted messages. Like Apple’s iMessage when generating blue chat bubbles or Meta’s What’s App, Signal is one of a small number of secure apps for messaging and probably the favorite app among denizens of Washington, D.C. Erase the message and it disappears forever. The system is designed to be impenetrable by snooping governments.

That the Trump Team set up a Signal chat is not surprising. It is rare these days to make connections in Washington without someone asking if you are on Signal. The Chinese have penetrated our telecom system so thoroughly that FBI officials have advised every notable person in Washington to avoid using cellphones for voice calls and insecure text messages that are important. It seems Trump officials have, like the Biden Administration, given up trying to get China out of the system. Likewise, given the prior Trump term, there is undoubtedly deep distrust in using the government’s own secured systems for internal deliberations lest an embedded partisan leak them.

Second, it is notable the tenor of the conversations in this group chat are exactly what we might expect in public. Vice President Vance is as hostile to European powers in the chat as he is in public. He preferred delaying the attack on the Houthis for a month and did not appreciate doing Europe’s dirty work for it. Secretary of Defense Hegseth is proudly pro-military and recognizes American military might stands second to none and sometimes must do jobs no other nation can do. Also, middle aged white dudes love to send emojis in group chats for reasons that baffle me.

Third, for all the bellyaching about the liberal press, it is very notable how closely major media outlets are intertwined even with the Trump Administration such that Jeffrey Goldberg could be added to a group chat by, presumably, Michael Waltz, the national security adviser, and no one really noticed.

The entire situation is farcical and embarrassing. It appears to be amateur hour with the national security apparatus. An editor of a major publication gets added to a group chat with the vice president of the United States, secretary of state, national intelligence director, CIA chief, secretary of defense, national security adviser, and others, and no one noticed before they started trading classified information relating to means and methods of an attack that included the names of CIA operatives. It is to Jeffrey Goldberg’s credit that he chose not to reveal any of that information.

To put this in very real perspective, if this were a junior staff member or member of the military who set up this group chat, added principal players, and also accidentally added a journalist, he would be looking at prison right now. That is not an exaggeration. Additionally, President Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan was a colossal screw up for which no one got fired and that withdrawal saw aggressive Democrat defenses of it. This is not nearly that level of screw up, but it still compromised key intelligence and, notably, very few Republicans are willing to mount a defense.

Only some of President Trump’s most ardent supporters are offering a defense—namely that it is some sort of seven-dimensional chess to willfully and intentionally add Goldberg who, presumably, would leak American frustrations with Europe as expressed in the chat by Vance so that Europe bombs the Houthis instead of us. That logic, of course, ignores that neither Messrs Vance or Trump are shy about voicing their concerns about Europe loudly on social media.

If this were the Biden Administration, Republicans would be calling for heads to roll and unwilling to claim it was some sort of multi-dimensional stroke of brilliance. We live in the days when our political opponents’ mistakes are all stupid and signs of gross incompetence and our political tribe’s mistakes are all signs of genius we are not smart enough to appreciate.

The accidental group chat was a stupid mistake and there should be real accountability. But it did not, thankfully, compromise the mission or jeopardize lives. It revealed the internal deliberations of serious people who, in private, believe the same things they claim publicly. It suggests a deep concern about our telecommunications infrastructure and the security of the government’s own means of communications. And it shows there remains a close enough relationship behind the scenes between prominent members of the Trump Administration and the press that an accidental screw up like this could happen. Make of that what you will.