Kyle Cave
Staff Writer
Just a few weeks ago, The Trump Administration ordered strikes on Yemen to target the Houthis. As a method of communication, Michael Waltz, the current National Security Adviser of the administration, created a Signal group chat to discuss the classified plans of this operation.
Little did Waltz and the rest of the administration know it would come back to bite them due to an uninvited guest in the Signal Group chat, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic Jeffery Goldberg.
Goldberg, like any good journalist, would leak the details of the group chat for the public to see. This was done to show the public the irresponsibility and recklessness of the administration for talking about classified war plans through an app.
As a journalist myself, Signal is not the issue here. Signal is a great app to talk to sources with encryption and protection in case issues arise.
The difference between a journalist and a government official handling classified documents is pretty obvious.
The response to the obvious screw-up from the administration was three words that Trump and his administration will always do. Deny, Deny, Deny.
“There were no war plans texted,” said Pete Hegseth on three occasions in 48 hours, even though Goldberg released the texts from the group chat the detailed strike packages and where the targets were in Yemen.
During the Senate hearings where senators were grilled about the group chat not one of the participants in the chat owned up to their mistakes and downplayed the seriousness of the security breach.
To me, it doesn’t surprise me this level of incompetence. When Trump was picking his cabinet, most of his picks were extremely controversial and were on record doing horrendous things. When you pick people in your cabinet who cannot do the job and have zero experience at what they are doing, chaos will inevitably ensue.
This is only a preview of what is to come next in my view. We are only three months into this Trump Administration, and we are already seeing the expected chaos that we all predicted. And it seems at this moment, Trump does not intend to fire any of the people responsible for this obvious leak.
If a leak this monumental can happen with such sensitive data imagine what else can happen? What if next time it’s not a journalist who gets sensitive information but someone who would want to harm any country they wanted?
This is only the beginning though, to me; it’s not that hard to tell that something like this will most likely happen again with the sheer amount of not taking accountability and incompetence we have seen from this administration alone.
The first step to fixing a problem is acknowledging there is a problem. Instead of doing that this administration is attacking the journalist who leaked it Jeffery Goldberg for doing his job instead of taking responsibility and owning up to it.
Insults and throwing the blame at journalists for doing their job when the responsibility of the leak is on you just shows that they will not learn from their mistakes. And that more and possibly more dangerous mistakes are going to come. And next time, the consequences will be worse than just a stern yelling.