John,
Gross incompetence is no excuse: this was criminal recklessness.
War plans, including targets, weapons systems, and exact timing of the airstrikes, were leaked in a Signal group chat in real time, and no one involved even realized there was an unauthorized person in the chat.
National Security Advisor Michael Waltz had invited Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg to the chat without realizing it. Goldberg waited to see if it was real before reporting the breach, but initially he held back key details for security reasons. Only after Trump officials denied the leak and smeared the reporting did The Atlantic release the full text of the chat logs, revealing the accuracy and the high level of specificity of the plans involved.
Two huge errors combined to create this unprecedented breach: first, the war planning group should never have been using these unsecured channels in the first place, and second, NSA Waltz should never have invited “J.G.” to the chat without confirming who he was inviting.
The Trump administration has fired over 83,000 people from the Veterans Administration, and hundreds of thousands of public servants from other departments, but did any heads roll over this breach? Of course not, that would be admitting the seriousness of the mistake. Instead, Trump defended Waltz, saying he’d “learned a lesson” and was a “very good man.”
Clearly, Donald Trump is not taking this breach seriously enough. Tell the President, not only NSA Michael Waltz, but every official involved in the chat, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President J.D. Vance, should either resign or be fired.
Among the additional participants in this disastrous mismanagement of national security were Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Astonishingly, one of the individuals included in the chat, Steve Witkoff, was actually in Moscow at the time -- meeting with Vladimir Putin.
That’s right: War plans were being leaked in real time, while one of the recipients sat in the Russian capital. The recklessness of this situation is beyond comprehension.
Now, rather than taking responsibility, they are trying to cover it up. Gabbard testified to Congress, “There was no classified material that was shared.” Hegseth also lied, telling a reporter “Nobody was texting war plans.” But screenshots of the texts reveal that Hegseth identified weapons systems, movement of targets, and precise launch times.
This is not just a failure of judgment. This is dangerous misconduct that has put national security at risk. Every official involved must be held accountable.
Tell the Administration: Those who participated in this breach -- especially Pete Hegseth and Michael Waltz -- should immediately resign or be removed from their positions.
We simply cannot allow this level of incompetence and recklessness to go unanswered.
- DFA AF Team
