At least #SignalGate has given us the best memes of 2025 so far?
It's funny if you ignore all the serious national security vulnerabilities 🤷
By now you’ve undoubtedly heard about the Signal “leak” involving the editor from The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg.
Of course, the Trump administration has sought to downplay the situation. NPR reports:
Security breaches like what happened in the Signal group chat are called "spillage" by the military.
"What typically happens in a spillage as serious as this is they're immediately fired," says Kevin Carroll, who served 30 years in the Army, followed by the CIA and then the Department of Homeland Security in the first Trump administration. He says there's no doubt what would have happened to an active-duty officer who had participated in the Signal chat.
"They're processed for being kicked out of the military, and they're referred for criminal prosecution," he says.
A lawyer himself, Carroll has defended troops who accidentally leaked information.
"I've defended spillage cases where people were going to be put out of the military or people were going to be turned out of their job within the military for violations that are just the smallest fraction of what just occurred," Carroll said.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said “There's no units, no locations, no routes, no flight paths, no sources, no methods, no classified information.”
In a press release, Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth, a pilot herself and Iraq War veteran, said:
Pete Hegseth is a f*cking liar. This is so clearly classified info he recklessly leaked that could’ve gotten our pilots killed. He needs to resign in disgrace immediately.
A few things are clear about this “leak”:
Is it a leak when you invite someone to observe a group chat?
I won’t count this as a point here, but can you call it a leak when a data breach is a result of your own incompetence?
This isn’t the first time they’ve used a commercial communication app to discuss military operations.
In the screenshots of the chat published by The Atlantic, not a single person questions why they’re using Signal to discuss these plans. The lack of confusion indicates this is part of their standard operating procedure.
It’s very likely at least some of the members of the chat were using their personal phones.
Phones issues by the federal government had previously blocked the installation of Signal. Director of National Intelligence (and likely Russian asset) Tulsi Gabbard testified this week that it comes pre-installed on government phones, which if true is a dramatic shift from previous policy and contradicts guidance from the National Security Agency last month warning government employees about using Signal.
It’s likely that Trump officials’ Signal accounts were already compromised.
German news magazine Der Spiegel reported the phone numbers, email addresses, and even some passwords for Mike Waltz, Pete Hegseth, and Tulsi Gabbard could be found using commercial data search services and hacked data. They also said it was “particularly easy” to find Pete Hegseth’s phone number and email address, with some data breaches even including his passwords.
They used Signal to avoid potential FOIA requests, knowingly breaking the law.
Waltz set messages on the app to disappear after 1 week, seen in the initial screenshot shared by The Atlantic.
Project 2025, the guidebook Trump has more or less closely followed since taking office, had a training video specifically warning employees about using commercial texting apps such as Signal (the relevant part of this video starts at 20:10):
All this is particularly ironic when you recall that Tulsi Gabbard fired over 100 intelligence officers last month for their things they said in a government chat app.
My tinfoil hat confession with this is someone had already compromised Waltz’s Signal account and intentionally invited Goldberg to the group chat to expose this behavior.
As many experts and lawmakers have already pointed out, the type of information disclosed here could have resulted in service members being injured, killed, or captured. It’s particularly ironic that people who claim to be “patriots” and pretend to adore the members of our military would be so careless about adding additional threats to their safety. This exchange struck me as particularly odd:
Get fisted, ‘Murica.
I have my own questions about why an operation like this is something the US government would even engage in, but that’s the topic of another post.
At least this led to some of the best memes of 2025 so far?
