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Barrett Swink's avatar

Having held various security clearances, I know what should have happened. All persons involved should have been fired on the spot and their clearances cancelled. This includes Pete Hegseth, and Congress should impeach Trump. It is not only about what was or was not revealed but also about ignoring the severity of the conduct.

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Helena Handbasket's avatar

"It is not only about what was or was not revealed but also about ignoring the severity of the conduct." Perfectly stated in one sentence. Good work!

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COL Mustard's avatar

I would like to see Hegspeth impeached. That's not just limited to Presidents, you know. As a relatively low level Executive Branch employee, I'm subject to that if Congress ever decided they had a case. Good thing I'm anonymous.

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Cesidio Barberis's avatar

Let's not be distracted by the details: use of compromised personal phones and "secure" but unauthorized apps like Signal, or "was it really classified". The core problem here is that these "patriots" did not use the real comm systems because they did not want even classified records of what they were saying or doing to exist outside their control. Because it involved ongoing military ops, this is far worse than Hillary's server, but the root issue is similar--trying to avoid accountability, and being too confident to understand just how little they really know.

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Dale of Green Gables's avatar

You're giving these bozos too much credit. Doubt whether Hegseth in particular even thought about control or accountability. Reptilian brains don't think that way. More along the lines of, "Hey, let's get the gang together and put on a classified chat" like one of those Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland musicals or "O-o-h, have I got a secret for you!" They're all cosplaying.

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Eric Peltosalo's avatar

Not about the chat but about Jeff and the Post. I still get and read the print edition and have been impressed that by simply publishing FACTS about 47 and Elon, the paper doesn't need additional editorial spin. The facts speak for themselves and reveal the ineptitude, mean-spiritedness and short-sightedness of the new regime. There is some very good reporting going on that should be encouraged.

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Nancy Meyer's avatar

Minor point, but I hereby declare Gene's graphic phrase "they weaseled like stoats" to be THE Simile of 2025! Exemplary!

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Henry Cohen's avatar

Plus, he sent me to the dictionary, where I learned a new word. (Actually, google, not the dictionary.)

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ChrisD's avatar

Gene's a stoat-hearted man.

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J Jaekel's avatar

Trump administration runs like the 3 stooges were in charge on a day Moe called in sick and went golfing. The other two hired the Keystone cops to implement policy.

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Sean Clinchy's avatar

They’ll get away with it, nobody will be fired, much less go to jail, because Trump’s followers don’t hold him accountable. Anything he does is fine with them, as long as he pursues his racist policies. Deport black and brown people, and everything else is OK. Republicans in Congress are afraid of being primaried from the right, so they won’t challenge any of this.

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Henry Cohen's avatar

Will everything be fine with them once their Social Security payments stop arriving? Will they believe Trump when he denies that they've stopped arriving and blames Biden because they've stopped arriving? Will they notice the inconsistency?

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Sasquatch's avatar

No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby. The mistake that is made always runs the other way. Because the plain people are able to speak and understand, and even, in many cases, to read and write, it is assumed that they have ideas in their heads, and an appetite for more. This assumption is a folly.

-- H. L. Mencken

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Jim Schaefer's avatar

From Gertrude Stein: “I do not like to fish in troubled waters, but I do enjoy watching the water and the fishermen and the fish.”

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Dale of Green Gables's avatar

Understand Stephen Colbert will be in on the next classified chat and Demento will be selling Golden Passwords for future ones.

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Dave Scocca's avatar

They already did.

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Gene Weingarten's avatar

I KNOW! THEY JUMPED MY GUN.

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Dale of Green Gables's avatar

Forget to zip up again, did you?

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Gene Weingarten's avatar

I SAID he was better than I am at this...

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Lynne Larkin's avatar

Ha! Humble but brilliant journalists think alike.

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Henry Cohen's avatar

Just up at The New York Times: "Trump Administration Live Updates: Newly Published Signal Texts Detail Airstrike Plans as Leak Criticism Mounts" https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/03/26/us/trump-news

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JWG's avatar
Mar 26Edited

It depends on what you mean by "get away with it". The totally ineffectual Congressional Republicans will do nothing. (get away with it) If this had happened six months ago they would be apoplectic, and be screaming for Biden's hide! (hypocrisy, AGAIN) As for our (former) allies, this is one more reason for them not to trust or work with the US in the future. (not get away with it) This kind of idiocy will even make Putin concerned.

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Dale of Green Gables's avatar

Please enlighten us Pandit Ji, if classified information is wrongly (and possibly illegally) shared on an unsecured commercial app and there is no magazine editor to document it, did it happen?

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Mary Roeser's avatar

The GQP/MAGAT cult will, of course, allow their lord and master to get by with it. They haven't stood up to the Russian Agent or held him accountable in 10 years. Why would anyone believe they will do so now?

Why would anyone ever believe anything the Russian Agent said? He is a pathological liar.

P.S.: Someone should let the Drunk at the DoD know that drunk-texting never does work out well.

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Mark Asquino's avatar

So where’s the”You’re fired!” mogul? Not even a whimper.

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Henry Cohen's avatar

From The New York Times: "The new messages, which include screenshots of the full chat on the encrypted consumer messaging app Signal, make clear that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth included specific details of the timing of the launches from aircraft carriers of the U.S. military jets that were to strike Houthi targets. Launch times are typically closely guarded to ensure that the targets cannot move into hiding or mount a counterattack at the very moment planes are taking off, when they are potentially vulnerable."

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Lynne Larkin's avatar

Isn't it just RIPE that they thought The Atlantic would continue to hold back the info??

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Henry Cohen's avatar

They didn't care; they lie even when it is obvious they're lying. Yesterday, Hegseth said that reports of the incident were a hoax, just like the "Russia, Russia, Russia" hoax, the "good people on both sides" hoax, and the "suckers and losers" hoax. Those past events are well-established, but that doesn't stop him from lying that they're hoaxes.

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Lori D Petterson's avatar

I guess folks who don't know you can't keep secured info in your bathroom as toilet-side reading don't know it is illegal to converse about national security issues on Signal - but they sure realized it when Hillary used her private server to send a few emails......

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Leslie G's avatar

Next time maybe they will have those discussions on public Facebook posts, and leave them open for commenting. Even more emojis, and the ability to add their "feelings" and even raise money!

They missed their chance.

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Leslie G's avatar

Paywall. I'll never pay another dime to WaPo.

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