Make War Plans Classified Again

By: Gabriel León

Screenshot images of the leaked Signal group chat (Image via the New York Times)

If there was one thing that perfectly sums up the current state of our nation, top government officials sharing U.S. military plans with Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine, has to be it. 

Former Secretaries of Defense, including Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, have gone so far as to say that an error of this magnitude should result in immediate termination and even imprisonment. 

I feel like I am repeating myself after having covered U.S. politics for the last three months, but this really is unprecedented. 

During the Cold War, people were put on trial and imprisoned for giving U.S. secrets to the Soviet Union. However, under President Trump’s administration, a clear precedent has been laid—that we should be forgiving of officials that disclose highly classified information to civilians. 

The whole point of the Espionage Act of 1917 is to criminalize the unauthorized disclosure of classified information that could harm the U.S. or aid our enemies. However, Attorney General Pam Bondi has made it clear that there will likely not be a criminal investigation into the matter, and as of today, any such investigation has not been initiated. President Trump made sure to fill his administration with loyalists who would take whatever he said as the truth, and he has been clear that no mistake has been made in this instance. 

Let’s break down exactly what happened. 

Last month, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz added Mr. Goldberg to a group chat on the messaging app, Signal, that included Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, amongst other individuals. All of these government officials report directly to President Trump. 

To sum up a long string of texts, the premise of what was said revolves around U.S. plans to administer a strike against the Houthis in Yemen, a long-time enemy of the U.S., who have been deemed a terrorist group by President Trump. 

Secretary of Defense Hegseth includes specific military language, including a timeline that outlines the type of fighter jets and drones that will be used, respectively, F-18 jets and MQ-9 drones. National Security Advisor Waltz communicated to the group that they had collapsed a building that included one of the main targets of the attack, which received a celebration from the rest of the group. Waltz infamously responded with the fist, U.S. flag, and fire emoji, a behavior that has been utilized by Democrats to try to show just how unserious and unqualified so many of the officials of this new administration are. 

You may be wondering where President Trump was during the attack on the Houthis. Well, he was in Mar-a-Lago, which is revealed in the leaked chats. When questioned about how a mistake of this gravity could happen, President Trump said, “This was not classified,” and that it was “very unfair the way they attacked Michael.” 

This reaction makes perfect sense when we consider that there will almost certainly not be a criminal investigation launched into the matter and that nobody has lost their job because of this extraordinary mistake, which would, of course, diminish what President Trump claims has been a perfect beginning to his administration. 

Trump’s ambiguity regarding the situation is frightening. How is this information not classified if there are specific timetables and means of attacking the Houthis? What could have happened if the Houthis got ahold of this information? These questions leave doubts in the minds of many Americans as we wonder just how costly the next mistake could be. 

There have been a mind-boggling number of missteps made by this administration. However, this leak is a perfect representation of just how far we have fallen since the end of the Biden Administration in only a matter of a few weeks. 

Let’s not forget that a main point of President Trump’s 2016 campaign was that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should have a criminal investigation launched into her emails under this position that were supposedly leaked. How is this any different? 

Using Trump’s own logic, officials whom he appointed should be criminally investigated right now, but they aren’t. Why? Because they have shown nothing but unwavering loyalty to the President, which is more important in the White House than obeying the Constitution and the Supreme Court of the U.S.