Criminal recklessness.

March 25, 2025

It beggars belief that the nation’s top national security and intelligence community officers used a commercial messaging app (Signal) to coordinate a military strike against Houthi rebels last week. See Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic, The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans. (This article should be accessible to all.)

The recklessness of cabinet secretaries, chief intelligence officers, the White House Chief of Staff, and the Vice President violated multiple US laws and regulations. The recklessness was criminal; any government employee of lower rank who committed the same offense would be behind bars on Monday evening—awaiting trial without the benefit of bail. See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 793(f) (“Whoever . . . .through gross negligence permits [national defense information] to be . . . delivered to anyone in violation of his trust” shall be fined or imprisoned for up to ten years.)

The incident is even more chilling because there are strong indications that the nation’s cabinet secretaries and intelligence chiefs have routinely sent highly sensitive communications using a commercial messaging app—possibly on unsecured personal cellphones (based on my inference, as explained below).

The purpose of running an “off the books” communications network is straightforward: To evade public scrutiny ensured by legal mandates to preserve copies of ALL federal records created by the President, Vice President, cabinet agencies, and the intelligence community. (Relevant statutes include, but are not limited to, the Presidential Records Act and the Records Management by Federal Agencies Act.)

It is a crime to conceal or destroy a federal record. The essential purpose of the Signal App used by the administration's senior officers is to (a) encrypt messages so they are unavailable to (i.e., concealment from) anyone not part of the message chain and (b) allow the permanent, undetectable deletion of messages by the recipient (destruction).

On its face, the incident reported by Jeff Goldberg in The Atlantic suggests that a dozen members of Trump's administration committed a felony and may be barred from holding federal office by operation of law! (See 18 USC 2017 (b), “. . . and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States.”)

There is so much noise around Jeff Goldberg's story in The Atlantic that I will attempt to focus on the real scandal—the use of a commercial messaging app to circumvent security infrastructure that protects defense secrets and preserves the official records of communications and decision-making by senior government officers.

As I said, senior administration officials were running an “off the books” government using the might of the United States military.

I am not a national security expert and the comments above and below are my immediate lay impressions. I expect that experts will provide additional legal analyses in the next few days.

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The use of the Signal App was illegal—standing alone.

All communications regarding national security should take place over government-issued, secure, encrypted phones and networks (at least). The most sensitive matters relating to defense should be discussed only within the confines of a secure room called a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or a SCIF. Plans regarding military strikes should take place within the confines of a SCIF. See, e.g., DOD Instruction 8523.01 | Communications Security.

Use of third-party messaging apps on government issued phones is prohibited by DOD policy. See Department of Defense, Policy Regarding Use of Unclassified Mobile Applications in Department of Defense (10/06/2023). Paragraph 10 in Attachment Two of the DOD document states that

Unmanaged 'messaging apps,' including any app with a chat feature, regardless of the primary function, are NOT authorized to access, transmit, process non-public DoD information. This includes but is not limited . . . iMessage, WhatsApps, [and] Signal.

I suspect (but do not know) that government-issued, secure phones are “locked” to prevent downloading of commercial messaging applications like Signal. If true (and I could be wrong), then each of the dozen senior administration officials was using a personal phone to discuss sensitive battle plans for a strike against the Houthi rebels.

Moreover, DOD policy requires that IF a non-DOD messaging app is used for official communications, then a copy of the communication must be moved to and stored on a DOD server within 20 days.

Per the 10/06/2023 policy above,

Any DoD record created or received on any government owned mobile device or AMD and not captured in a DoD records system must be transferred to a DoD records system within 20 days of creation or receipt.

I strongly suspect that Pete Hegseth and the Keystone Cops were not regularly transferring Signal messages to a DOD records system, as required.

To summarize, if the senior administration officials followed US law, regulation, and policy, they would not have done the following:

• Used a commercial messaging app to communicate national defense information.

• Downloaded Signal onto a government-issued phone;

• Used a personal cellphone with Signal to communicate national defense information;

• Concealed documents required to be preserved by various federal statutes;

• Deleted communications from the Signal app, either manually or automatically.

In short, the mere use of the Signal app is a major scandal that eclipses the “But her emails” fake controversy that denied Hillary Clinton the presidency in 2016. By using a commercial message app on personal cell phones (my surmise), the senior officers in the administration have put the US national security in grave danger.

Even worse is the suggestion that the very people entrusted to protect the nation’s most sensitive intelligence matters are wholesale disregarding national security protocols! Those officials include Mike Waltz, the National Security Advisor, Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, and John Ratcliffe, the CIA Director. All three are derelict in their duties by allowing unsecured communication of war plans on a commercial messaging app and personal cell phones.

It is also unforgivable that VP JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of Defense Hegseth would act in such a cavalier manner with national defense information.

In a normal world, all of them should resign—on Tuesday. In a normal world, the GOP House conference would commence impeachment proceedings against each of them, and the Senate would convict post haste.

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The inadvertent disclosure to Jeffrey Goldberg

Note that my comments above regarding the illegality and gravity of the national security breach have nothing to do with the inadvertent disclosure to Jeffrey Goldberg. The mere use of Signal to transmit national defense information is criminal. But the reckless disclosure to Jeffrey Golberg elevates the offense to a level requiring impeachment and removal from office.

The inadvertent disclosure to Jeffrey Goldberg creates independent damage. In this debacle, Goldberg is an innocent actor, but the information in The Atlantic article is profoundly embarrassing and damaging to US foreign relations.

JD Vance said during the chat, “I just hate bailing Europe out again,” to which Pete Hegseth replied,

VP: I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC.

Someone by the initials “SM” reduced the airstrike to a transactional bargain with Europe, writing:

[The President says] we soon make clear to Egypt and Europe what we expect in return. We also need to figure out how to enforce such a requirement. EG, if Europe doesn’t remunerate, then what? If the US successfully restores freedom of navigation at great cost there needs to be some further economic gain extracted in return.

So, there you have it: our leaders hold Europe in contempt and expect it to pay for US military actions designed to keep international shipping lanes open.

Ugh. What a degrading, pitiful display of grubbiness and ungratefulness by our senior administration officials.

One additional unsettling aspect of the affair is that Trump claimed to know nothing about the inadvertent disclosure to Jeffrey Goldberg—even after a representative of the National Security Advisor admitted that the texts received by Goldberg were authentic. Trump is either clueless, lying, or both. There is no combination of those possibilities that reflects favorably on Trump.

This scandal should occupy the front pages of every newspaper in America for months—until several senior administration officials resign or are fired. Stay tuned.

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Bar Associations band together to condemn Trump's targeting of legal profession

In a welcome sign of life from the legal profession, a group of bar associations issued a statement condemning Trump's attack on the law firms. See In Defense of the Rule of Law and the Independence of the Legal Profession.

Law firms in New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Los Angeles signed the petition, as did nearly two-dozen “Affiliate, Specialty, Regional, & Local Bar Associations.”

The statement states, in part,

We, the undersigned bar associations, stand united in condemning the President’s orders targeting law firms. These actions violate fundamental principles of our legal system and undermine the right to counsel, the independence of the legal profession, and the rule of law.

I recommend the entire statement for your consideration.

A good start! Bar associations from across America should sign onto the statement!

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Concluding Thoughts

There is more to discuss, but my wife wisely counseled that the inadvertent leak to Jeffrey Golberg was the main story today and deserved to be the centerpiece of the newsletter. I will return to this story as more commentators and experts weigh in. And the press should begin digging into questions that deserve immediate answers—such as,

• Why were America’s senior leaders using a commercial messaging app to conduct highly sensitive military planning?

• Were they using personal cell phones?

• Were they preserving their chats?

• Who else in the government is using Signal to evade FOIA review and document preservation requirements?

Trump intentionally appointed rank amateurs without qualifications to serve in highly sensitive positions. America is now paying the price for Trump's decision. Votes by Democratic Senators to confirm seemingly “competent” officials like Marco Rubio now seem foolish in light of Rubio’s participation in military planning that has the same level of security used by fraternities to plan beer bashes on Saturday evening. Truly disgusting, disappointing, and alarming. And recklessly criminal.

Talk to you tomorrow!

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Daily Dose of Perspective

Markarian’s Chain is a group of galaxies included in the Virgo Cluster. They range in distance from 50 to 60 million light years from Earth.

The photo below shows eleven galaxies. Two (in the center) nearly overlap. One (on the right side of the “arc”) is only slightly larger than the pinpoint stars in the photo.

Enjoy!