Summary
The Atlantic has published unredacted attack plans (non-paywall link) shared in a Signal group chat of senior Trump officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and DNI Tulsi Gabbard.
Editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg released the full texts after officials denied sharing war plans or classified information, arguing transparency was necessary amid accusations of dishonesty.
The leaked messages detailed U.S. military strikes targeting Houthis in Yemen.
So yesterday they lied to congress more often than they told the truth? So many “I don’t recall” when in fact they could pull it up on their phone and know? Traitors to American families every one of them
Lying about sleeping with an intern - impeachment
Lying about sharing classified information on an insecure group chat - “he’s just a widdle guy 😢”
Especially bad when the whole “reason” for that impeachment was about investment fraud or something and only became about sex with intern after they couldn’t prove anything else.
Whitewater real estate scandal. Kenneth Starr was investigating him for that and when they couldn’t find anything actionable, they switched to the perjury and sex.
I’m not a fan of a President using their power to have an intern blow them (I don’t think there’s meaningful consent there), but it doesn’t compare to raping multiple women, peeping on teenage girls at Miss Teen America, and making comments about how you’d fuck your daughter if that was an option. The aristocrats!
Stop taking away women’s agency with this “meaningful consent” bullshit.
At the time I was in the Air Force, and a bunch of us were discussing this. Well over half the women at the table has the attitude of “Are you kidding? Of course, blowing the most powerful man in the world is hot as hell”.
Monica was obviously into it and an adult.
“Sure my boss took advantage of me, but I will always remain firm on this point: it was a consensual relationship,” Lewinsky wrote in 2014. “Any ‘abuse’ came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position.”
Lewinsky says she now sees that her relationship with Clinton was full of “inappropriate abuse of authority, station, and privilege.”
“Now, at 44, I’m beginning (just beginning) to consider the implications of the power differentials that were so vast between a president and a White House intern,” she wrote. “I’m beginning to entertain the notion that in such a circumstance the idea of consent might well be rendered moot.”
@andros_rex@lemmy.world didn’t take away Lewinski’s agency.
“Any ‘abuse’ came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position.”
And that’s what seals the deal for me. If Clinton gave a shit about Lewinsky, he would have at least tried to protect her somewhat in the fallout. He had fun, she had consequences.
People on the left treated her like shit - I guess it is further evidence that Bill Maher has always been awful. She got played on manipulated on both sides. Her reputation was trashed and she had a hard time finding work after - it destroyed her career and future.
This was a boss that took advantage of his power and authority to get a couple loads out, and then disposed of the person once they became our nation’s designated bearer of the scarlet letter.
I had sex with men who were much older than me when I was in my early twenties. The difference was that they weren’t my boss.
Dan Savage I think had something about “campground rules” too - if you are going to have sexual relations with a legal consenting adult you are significantly older than, it’s on you to use your greater experience to leave that partner better than you found them.
Are you a woman? How the fuck do you meaningfully say no to sex with the President?
Go fuck yourself with that “taking away women’s agency” bullshit. Bosses don’t get to sleep with employees. Teachers don’t get to sleep with students.
Monica got treated like shit for decade. That’s not “hot as hell” unless you’re a creepy misogynist that gets off on women being public humiliated.
I fucking hate this shit so much.
So you don’t recall a lot, huh? So clearly you’re not fit for your position, good luck finding a new job tho.
I am in lots of group chats and don’t read every one of them to completion. So not all members of the chat knowing or remembering what happened is to be expected.
Yeah, but the second something juicy happens, we all scroll back and get caught up pretty quickly.
You are in group chats at this level? Because, I’m sure as fuck is not. And if I was, I’d read every message.
It’s so wild that they are very demanding of touchpoints up front but totally clueless about everything throughout the chat…
They waited till he entered his girlfriends apartment building?.. seems on point for the military. How many people died? I think someone said 53? And was that guy the only target? So many deaths for one dickhead…
Isn’t that a war crime? No wonder so many people hate the US.
Good thing the US doesn’t recognize the authority of the International Criminal Court, so there’s no risk of them having to face consequences for their war crimes.
They even have a law that makes it illegal to cooperate with the ICC in bringing US personnel to justice, and that allows the president to use any force necessary to prevent it from happening.
And their praying for the killers of so many innocent.
More risk to the US personnel or assets, and it would be a diplomatic and domestic incident if it came out that US troops or assets were operating in Yemen. It’s much safer to bomb them from a plane.
Also there’s the terror aspect where the US government presumably wants to cause chaos and fear explicitly to make continuing the blockade less appealing to both the Houthis and the people of Yemen.
So strange that no one is talking about this aspect of it.
Like I’m no war expert (obviously neither are they), but wouldn’t it cause far fewer causalities, and be far cheaper and easier, to just hide in the bushes and shoot the guy when he comes out? Since they know exactly where he is?
1 death vs 53, 1 bullet vs whatever TF it takes to level a building?
I think you meant attack expert, no war plan information was shared…
/s
You’re going to need a team of people, fly them in and out and make sure they get back home alive or it might hurt the president’s polls. It might be cheaper but it’s much riskier. Nobody in the US cares about those 52 other people so that doesn’t really matter to them.
I’m surprised they didn’t use drones.
Why kill one when you can kill a bunch. Rack it up to collateral damage then go have a beer at the bar. Maybe leak some more texts before your Telsa test drive.
See this as further proof they do not value human lives.
✊💣🔥
Not sure about legality, and not that the US military care, but confirming someone id, and that he is visiting a gf or family member, then bombing the house, sound like a war crime.
They will pay no penalties for this. Trump deserves to be hanged for treason but that hasn’t happened yet.
It’s okay when the US does it.
I’m sure USians would be perfectly normal and react calmly and rationally if a foreign power killed 50 innocent people while assassinating a target on US soil.
It is a crime and Israel is doing it too so Trump and the whole clown car just follows the lead. I am all for killing people who have done heinous shit but killing everybody in whole build just to get tom them is beyond fucked up.
Israel, Russia and now the US just joined the club!
We actually have munitions that don’t blow up too. We could literally have killed just him. This isn’t 20 years ago anymore.
Whatever… Exactly zero consequences…
Nonono this time they really got him. He’s truly fucked now. He’s getting slammed over this. America every day for 8 years now.
We are currently clean on OPSEC
While actively leaking information lmao
This is becoming a theme stretching back multiple administrations. The people at the top either don’t understand IT acceptable use policies, cybersecurity controls, classification divisions of systems, records retention policies, etc; or they are intentionally ignoring them. And for bonus points, everyone at this level is an espionage target.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_White_House_email_controversy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton_email_controversy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_government_group_chat_leak
They’re ignoring them. Acceptable use policies are annoying and they’re too powerful to follow the rules.
It’s quantifiable and expected threat by a known entity, versus nebulous threat by a unknown entity.
The records will be scrutinized. The FoIA requests will happen. The hack of their private infrastructure might not ever happen, and even if does, the foreign actors are not necessarily going to leak the records back to the US constituents: the real perceived threat.
They’ll gladly risk operational security for less paper trail. Every. Fucking. Time.
if this were any other regime, they’d be facing jail time for using a non-approved messaging app. But this is the year of the trumptard, so they will face no consequences.
Whiskeyleaks going absolutely ham over here lmfao
Whiskey leaks is a hilar6name for this snafu. God I hate this timeline so much.
I was expecting truly stupendous levels of stupidity, and my expectations continue to be blown the fuck away on a more or less daily basis.
GO FULL WAR THUNDER GO
That’s the best part!
Trump: that’s okay none of it was classified (is clearly classified)
The Atlantic: bet
Trump:
I love how the Atlantic called around to the various government offices who should care about this stuff: “Hey, are you sure there’s nothing classified in here? If this is too sensitive to print, just tell us and we won’t print it.” This has been a study in covering your ass and making sure the reporter doesn’t become the story, as much as the administration would love for it to.
It really does show how stupid this country is about waving “National Security” for any matter that would make the administration look bad.
That thumbnail makes Trump look like Gary Busey with his mouth closed. Although, I’m sure that would be an insult to Gary.
I’d be afraid of being arrested for treason even though Trump’s people claim it wasn’t classified
Dude literally looks like the bad guy’s top henchman that dies super easily after meeting the main character.
Didn’t the original article say it mentioned a CIA operative?
It is mentioned in the text, but I don’t see anything redacted in the screenshots either.
Edit: It could be in the very first message, it’s not clear if there is text between the first and second screenshot.
A CIA spokesperson asked us to withhold the name of John Ratcliffe’s chief of staff, which Ratcliffe had shared in the Signal chain, because CIA intelligence officers are traditionally not publicly identified. Ratcliffe had testified earlier yesterday that the officer is not undercover and said it was “completely appropriate” to share their name in the Signal conversation. We will continue to withhold the name of the officer. Otherwise, the messages are unredacted.
The interesting part of publishing all the texts is it only serves Trump’s plans. To tear America away from Europe and force America to find new global relationships. Interesting times we are living in.
There is the outside possibility that the journalist was added on purpose
“Won’t look good if this leaks and we don’t bomb them” is literally in the leaked chats. Journalist was added on purpose imo.
I’ve had this thought in the back of my mind since learning about this. How does one accidentally add someone to a group chat?
Why would an unfriendly journalist be in your (and everyone elsew) phone only as initials?
I honestly have 0 ideas as to why, but it’s just too stupid of an action to not be on purpose. I’m sure we’ll find out one day. These people aren’t very confidential and will probably blab about it on a talk show down the road.
We are four years out from a book deal.
