Did these people think they would get away with this? Or does being caught out in a lie "for the team" now entitle you to the White House equivalent of a Purple Heart?
From the Washington Post:
[edited for typo]How the Signal transcript undermines key Trump administration claims
The transcript undermines the claims that they weren’t “war plans” and testimony from key figures that they didn’t recall discussions of weapons or timing.
At the end of Tuesday’s Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Georgia) offered a warning to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe. Gabbard and Ratcliffe had danced around questions about the administration’s discussion of military plans on an unsecure app that inadvertently included a journalist.
“And by the way, we will get the full transcript of this chain, and your testimony will be measured carefully against its content,” Ossoff assured them.
We now have the transcript, and it indeed undermines several claims the administration has made over the past two days about the burgeoning scandal — including at that hearing.
The content of the Signal chat was published Wednesday morning by the Atlantic, whose editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was inadvertently included on the texts and which broke the story Monday.
The Atlantic said it was publishing the details, which it had previously concluded were too sensitive to publish, because of the administration’s efforts to downplay the text chat’s contents. The administration has indicated the information somehow wasn’t actually classified, despite the danger of such information about impending military strikes falling into the wrong hands and tipping off an adversary. The Trump administration has also generally dismissed the situation as a small “mistake” or a “glitch.”
Let’s run through some of the claims.
Claim No. 1: They weren’t “war plans”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said twice that the information contained in the chat weren’t “war plans.”
“As I also stated yesterday, nobody’s texting war plans, and that’s all I have to say about that,” Hegseth said Tuesday.
It’s difficult to see how the details discussed in the chat don’t constitute war plans. And even if you very narrowly construe that phrase, these were obviously highly sensitive operational details of a military action.
In one crucial text, Hegseth lays out a detailed timeline for striking Yemen’s Houthi rebels. The text was apparently sent at 11:44 a.m. Eastern time, with details of strikes set for 12:15, 13:45, 14:10, 14:15 and 15:36 p.m. (The text used military time.)
“THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP, pending earlier ‘Trigger Based’ targets,” Hegseth said of the 14:15 strikes.
Each entry features the type of aircraft or weaponry used, including F-18s, strike drones and “sea-based Tomahawks.” One entry notes that a specific “Target Terrorist” is expected to be “@ his Known Location.”
Reinforcing how strained Hegseth’s claim has become, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and other administration social media accounts claimed Wednesday that because the Atlantic’s headline labeled these “attack plans,” that meant the journalists were conceding they weren’t actually “war plans.”
This has clearly become a semantic game. But what’s also clear is that top administration officials were sharing highly sensitive information on an unsecure app, ahead of the actual strikes. That raised the possibility that the information could fall into the wrong hands and American troops could be endangered or the mission could fail.
And tellingly, despite downplaying the Signal chat, the White House actually objected to the Atlantic publishing these texts. While the Trump administration claimed they were somehow not classified, it said they constituted “internal and private deliberation amongst high-level senior staff” and said “sensitive information was discussed.”
Claim No. 2: Gabbard and Ratcliffe didn’t recall talk of weapons or timing
Gabbard and Ratcliffe, who were on the Signal chat thread, struggled mightily to account for the situation at Tuesday’s hearing. And the transcript calls into question a few of their responses — most notably when they said they didn’t recall prominent details that are now evident in the messages published by the Atlantic.
“Did this conversation at some point include information on weapons packages, targets or timing?” asked Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-New Mexico).
FBI Director Kash Patel said, “Not that I’m aware of.” Gabbard followed with, “Same answer and defer to the Department of Defense on that question.”
Heinrich followed up:
HEINRICH: Those are two different answers, but you are saying that did not — that was not part of the conversation?
At another point, Gabbard said in an exchange with Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Arizona) that she didn’t recall specific weapons being discussed:
KELLY: Was there — was there any mention, Ms. Gabbard, of a weapon or weapons system?
Ratcliffe also said, “I don’t recall,” to this question.
Gabbard also indicated she didn’t recall discussion of timing:
KELLY: How about anything about timing? Ms. Gabbard?
The texts make it clear that plenty of these kinds of specific details were discussed. Gabbard and Ratcliffe said they didn’t recall many of these things rather than denying them outright. When they did deny things, they cited the Defense Department rather than their own knowledge.
But these discussions took place less than two weeks ago, and Gabbard and Ratcliffe were included on them.
A military attack is also one of the most serious and sober actions the U.S. government undertakes. It strains credulity to think that such senior intelligence officials wouldn’t have consumed the details of what was being discussed, even if they somehow didn’t review the information before testifying.
Claim No. 3: Goldberg might have hacked his way in
This was the conspiracy theory du jour late Tuesday. During an appearance on Fox News host Laura Ingraham’s show, national security adviser Michael Waltz baselessly suggested that Goldberg might have found his way into the Signal chat through nefarious means.
“You know, Laura, I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but of all the people out there, somehow this guy who has lied about the president … he’s the one that somehow gets on somebody’s contact and then gets sucked into this group,” Waltz said.
Pressed on precisely what he was saying, Waltz expanded: “Well, if you have somebody else’s contact and then it — and then somehow it gets sucked in.”
“I don’t text him. He wasn’t on my phone,” Waltz said. “And we’re going to figure out how this happened.”
Trump also suggestively alluded to this idea.
“The person that was on just happens to be a sleazebag, so maybe that’s just coincidence,” Trump said. “I don’t know.”
There was no evidence for this theory Tuesday. And now the images of the text indicate Waltz did invite Goldberg to the chat.
At the top of the texts from Goldberg’s messages is this line: “Michael Waltz added you to the group.”
