When rank-and-file troops leak secrets, they often go to jail
Troops on active duty have had the book thrown at them for security breaches far less severe than texting strike plans to a journalist.
Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, has reported that he was inadvertently invited to join a group chat on the Signal messaging app by Michael Waltz, President Donald Trump’s national security advisor, in which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared detailed operational information about planned strikes in Yemen two hours before they happened.
“If this was someone on active duty, their career would be completely over and they would be facing jail time most likely just because of the nature of this, of using the inappropriate system, never mind the fact that it demonstrates recklessness,” said retired Air Force Lt. Col. Rachel VanLandingham, a former military attorney. “Individuals get administrative punishment at the minimum for leaving classified information on their desk.”
After news of the Signal chat broke, a National Security Council spokesman initially said “The message thread that was reported appears to be authentic.” However, over the last day, Hegseth and others on the chat have denied that the chat broke any rules. Hegseth told reporters on Monday that “nobody was texting war plans” and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told lawmakers on Tuesday that no “classified information” was shared in the chat group.
It was unclear Tuesday if the detailed operational information Goldberg said he received — including times of strikes, identities of targets, and intelligence that indicated its method of collection — was unclassified prior to the strikes, but similar information was almost universally classified during the two decades of post-9/11 wars.
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