The Signal Chat Fiasco and the Performative Presidency

This made-for-TV administration is not ready for prime time

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ALEX’S WEEKLY RANT!

I wasn’t going to let this one sit until Friday, so welcome to an early-week Rant!

If you haven’t read or heard about The Atlantic’s flabbergastipating story about their editor in chief accidentally being included on a war planning chat involving several Trump administration national security principals: have you been stuck under something heavy and do you need help?? Go read it, because I’m not giving a full summary here, and also because it is so fucking worth it.

But in a nutshell: the national security advisor of the United States, Mike Waltz, accidentally added a top Washington journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, to a super secret Signal chat titled “HouthiPC small group” which included secretary of state Marco Rubio, director CIA John Ratcliffe, director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, White House advisor Stephen Miller, and Vice President JD Vance, and the group discussed an imminent military strike on Yemen, not realizing a reporter was reading their every word.

This was, hands down, the funniest goddamn story, in the most sad and pathetic and enraging way, I have read in a long time.

I think the best place to start ranting is with this administration’s obsession with the idea that they are not actually running a country but entertaining one. They all seem to think the Hollywood version of their agency is real. This is performative national security, with zero understanding of how anything under their purview actually works.

Here’s an example. Last week, Kash Patel, our new FBI director, released this video, complete with hard core music, the sound of guns shooting while buildings explode, Kash strutting in camo and sunglasses, touting a “renewed” FBI that apparently consists mostly of badasses rappelling out of helicopters and nobody who sits at a desk.

Great for a Hollywood movie. But not reality. But that video was indicative of this administration’s desire to live out the Hollywood version of Washington.

The Signal chat fiasco is similar.

The best intelligence we get tends to come from people who don’t blow shit up, don’t rappel from helicopters, and generally operate under the radar. It is often collected at great risk to both the intelligence officer and the asset. These national security officials should know this, of course, but in putting sensitive information in a Signal chat, they showed total disregard for the potential consequences.

While it is very bad a reporter was included on this chat—which, according to said reporter included precise timing of a future military strike, specific targets, sequencing of the attack, weapons systems to be used, and more—the main issue is that any of this was discussed outside of classified communications channels. These details were discussed over a commercial texting app. This is not only dangerous for all assets involved, it is also illegal. Government communications systems and protocols exist for a reason (namely, to protect sensitive information!). But I bet it felt cool to be strutting around texting about an imminent military strike while the guy next to you has no clue you hold this kind of power. It must have felt like a movie.

Past Is Prologue

The carelessness with and disregard for classified information began in the first Trump administration. Trump overrode security officials who refused to hand out security clearances to certain individuals, including Jared Kushner, because of concerns about their background checks. Trump handing out clearances to whomever he pleases has become de rigeur in this second Trump administration.

Trump also famously shared classified intelligence in the Oval Office with Russian diplomats, which reportedly put the asset’s life at risk. A different asset reportedly had to be exfiltrated from Russia due to Trump’s carelessness. Trump also tweeted out a sensitive satellite photo of an Iranian site. No one did anything. No wonder he felt comfortable to stash thousands of classified documents in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom and on a resort ballroom stage after his presidency.

And recall if you will, just a few weeks ago when Ratcliffe’s CIA sent the names of undercover officers over an unclassified email system.

Is there any surprise, then, that Trump’s national security principals now would be careless? Communicate about war plans on a government system in a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF)? That’s so inconvenient! I want to have these chats on the go, while strutting like a badass in my sunglasses to a helicopter.

What else are these guys discussing over Signal? What other lapses in security have they made?

Fuck Yeah!

The hubris also shows through the text messages. The emoji these guys use have a Team America feel to them. Fist bumps. Fire. Waving American flags. Fuck yeah! America is saving the mother fucking day and Europe sucks ass!

A screenshot from the Signal group shows reactions to the strikes. (From The Atlantic)

The biggest sign of hubris, though, is Pete Hegseth—who Trump indeed picked from Central Casting, apparently not realizing he was only ready for weekend Fox News and not prime time—bragging that they have super duper opsec over a fucking Signal chat with a reporter reading every word.

“We are currently clean on OPSEC,” Hegseth, who plays the Secretary of Defense on TV, wrote about an imminent military action into a text chain that no one noticed included a journalist.

Moscow Has Entered The Chat

Also on the chat was Steve Witkoff, the administration’s top negotiator for Ukraine-Russia. Witkoff was in Moscow when all of this occurred. He was in Moscow. With his phone. On which top US national security officials were discussing war plans.

That creates the very real possibility that the Russians had access to that chat. Yes, messages sent over Signal are encrypted. But if the endpoint (i.e. a user’s phone) is vulnerable, the messages can be read once they are unencrypted at the endpoint (the same way you and I read them). Most normal USG officials would travel to Russia with a completely different phone with nothing on it, with the understanding that the host government will attempt to hack it.

Also, Russia has managed to break into Signal and use it for intelligence purposes.

Sasha Ingber

has a good summary of that here. The NSA (and other agencies) warned earlier this year about Signal’s vulnerabilities.

That doesn’t seem to have crossed these people’s minds. Look at me, in Moscow, having my super duper secret chat with badasses as we’re about to bomb the shit out of bad guys, I’m so cool! It’s easy to imagine such an inner monologue among novices who have been given access to such powerful tools they view as cool toys.

But the Russians know how to play such naivety like a violin.

This past weekend, Witkoff spent his time telling Tucker Carlson how much he trusted Putin and spewing Kremlin talking points on Tucker’s show, such as saying the occupied areas in Ukraine’s east should go to Russia, that Russia had a right to the land (one of the reasons he gave: that people there are Russian-speaking, which I guess means England has a right to the US? Bring back the crown!) and claiming that the referenda Russia held in those area (which were rigged and held at gunpoint) were legitimate and proved these areas want to be part of Russia.

Witkoff revealed that Putin had commissioned a “beautiful portrait” of Trump and sent it to him. Putin also told Witkoff that, after Trump’s attempted assassination last year, Putin had gone to church to pray for him. Yeah, I bet he did. Putin invested a lot of money in Trump!

All this to say: Witkoff is an easy mark for Putin. So the fact that he was participating in the Signal chat in Moscow, possibly in the Kremlin, leaves little doubt the phone was compromised. (It is worth noting here, too, that Gabbard was also traveling abroad as this chat was taking place.)

Presidential Records Act Is For Suckers

There is also the not so minor point that these guys are circumventing laws for preserving records. By using disappearing Signal chats, no records are saved. These people could plan all kinds of crimes and there would be no evidence to prove it.

This is precisely what Paul Manafort, Trump’s 2016 campaign manager, did when he was handing over sensitive information to his Russian intelligence friends (allegedly). He was never convicted of that because the special counsel couldn’t prove it, because messages between Manafort and his Russian intelligence friends had been disappeared faster than a migrant to an El Salvador prison.

Tulsi and the Signal Boys Tell Congress None of This Was Classified

Of course, Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic reporter who witnessed this entire conversation and took screen shots, does have a copy of these records. Which has created a bizarre quandary.

Yesterday, Tulsi and the Signal Boys appeared before Congress for a previously scheduled hearing on global threats. But a bunch of senators were less concerned with their prepared testimony and more interested in learning about how the fuck these idiots could have such a sensitive conversation over Signal.

The gang stuck to their guns, saying none of the information was classified.

So now what does Goldberg do? He has screen shots of the whole text chain. He knows if there was sensitive national defense information discussed (indeed, he has already described that very information, but in a manner much more responsible than those who are supposed to be stewards of our national security!). Goldberg could reveal the full text chain, proving Tulsi and the Signal Boys broke the law and just perjured themselves in front of Congress. But that would reveal the sensitive information (including intelligence related to sources and methods, apparently) to the public. It might also open Goldberg to legal ramifications when this administration inevitably attacks him to deflect from their own incompetence, and says look! Goldberg just revealed classified information (and Trump’s minions will conveniently forget that Tulsi and the Signal Boys had said, under oath, it was not classified).

But not revealing the full text chain allows these fuckers to keep lying and acting irresponsibly and illegally. Of course, that seems bound to happen anyway.

And just as this was about to go out, The Atlantic went ahead and published the full text chain. It’s not a good look for our national security stewards. Aside from the weapons info and strike schedule, the text chain is a goldmine of policy discussions, who thinks what about whom and what policies. Any intelligence agency would love to see it (and any case officer that collected it would be given much more than just a gift certificate to the Cheesecake Factory). And again, Witkoff was in Moscow, and Gabbard was…we don’t know where. How compromised are these guys and their phones? We can’t say for sure, but not doubt, our adversaries are rubbing their hands together with glee.

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THE WEEK’S LINKS

A roundup of things you should be reading

RUSSIA KIDNAPPING KIDS

The Ukrainian teens who took on Putin’s gulag archipelago—and won (Politico)

EXCELLENT RESOURCES!

Just Security has launched WHAT JUST HAPPENED? as well as a litigation tracker to help readers keep up with the chaos

Lawfare is tracking all Executive Orders and related lawsuits and providing excellent and needed analysis

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Alex Finley is a former officer of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, where she served in West Africa and Europe. She writes and teaches about terrorism, disinformation / covert influence, and oligarch yachts. Her writing has appeared in Slate, Reductress, Funny or Die, POLITICO, The Center for Public Integrity, and other publications. She has spoken to the BBC, MSNBC, CNN, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, France24, and numerous other media outlets. She was also invited once to speak at Harvard, which she now tells everyone within the first ten seconds of meeting them. She is the author of the Victor Caro series, satirical novels about the CIA. Before joining the CIA, Alex was a journalist, covering Capitol Hill, the Pentagon, and the Department of Energy. She reported on issues related to national security, intelligence, and homeland security. Did she mention she was invited to speak at Harvard?

Look at that beautiful smile! I look pretty happy, too.