The Yemen Group Chat

[Angel Eyes]

What was The Atlantic's position on General whats his face (name is escaping me) saying he would inform China of any attack ahead of time? Be willing to bet they though it was great idea.

Mark Milley.

Someone who should be on trial for treason.

[MillCreek]

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2025/03/26/different-spanks-different-ranks-hegseths-signal-scandal-would-put-regular-troops-brig.html

Some of the military rank and file call out what they see as a double standard on security lapses.

[dogmush]

 Yes, when you are the Originating Classification Authority, you can get away with more then if you are not.

Officers prolly need to stop talking to reporters and disparaging the chain of command publicly.


FWIW, having worked with target packages, while that signal chat leaking is certainly less than ideal, it would not count as a spillage incident.  There's not enough data there.

[Ben]

Yes, when you are the Originating Classification Authority, you can get away with more then if you are not.

It's sounding like one direction they might go, if the info is in fact deemed classified, is to have Hegseth retroactively declassify it, which I guess he has the authority to do. Out of everything that has leaked, the only post I have some heartburn with is that one of Hegseth's. Like Dogmush said though, it's missing a bunch of stuff that would make it dangerous leaking. Still problematic though, IMO. He could have just as easily said, "assets are allocated and standing by" or similar.

I used to have a bit more faith in stories coming out of military.com and Task and Purpose. They still seem pretty good when covering non-political stuff,  but doing deep dives into their reporters, a majority of them seem to also write/have written for places like Politico, and also like to do stories on stuff like "extremism" in the military, and you can guess which extremism. While a lot of them have military backgrounds, they kind of come off as "Veterans for Harris" club members. Or friends of Adam Kinzinger.

[WLJ]

[cordex]

Waiting for it to be released is key to more informed discussion.

The full Signal thread is available here.  I hadn't seen some of these posts on the other sites.  Makes you wonder what else they are hiding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eICVY59OfkE

[dogmush]

It's sounding like one direction they might go, if the info is in fact deemed classified, is to have Hegseth retroactively declassify it, which I guess he has the authority to do.

He doesn't even have to do that.  It's like the Keyhole pictures Trump posted.  SECDEF is the OCA for DOD.  If he posted info in an unclassified environment,  he DID unclassify it at that point.  He can do the paperwork so the rest of us can share it around and be covered, but it's not required for the OCA.

We went through this same thing with the Trump documents.   The OCA can just *unclassify* things.  The paperwork is for the benefit of the rest of us.

So that post is u classified *Because Hegseth said it is*. Trump is the only one that can overlook rule it.

In addition to being unclassified, it did not (IMO and in what Ive seen of spillage investigations) contain information  "the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause serious damage to the national security." which is the definition of "Secret".  Times and weapons platforms mean little without target names, locations, units involved, or something else.  Especially since those platforms are in the air near Yeman 24/7.  There's no actionable intel there for the Houthis to use other than "Button up, something somewhere is about to explode." which they new as soon as those Super Hornets went feet dry.

Would it have been better not to tell the reporter what time we were kicking it off?  Sure,  if you assume an accidental leak.  But this literal thing (platform movement times in CENTCOM put on Signal) i saw get an E7 online refresher training in 2019. 

This is nothingburger.

[Ron]

heh

[K Frame]

I'm just loving all of the "HEGSETH MUST IMMEDIATELY RESIGN FOR THIS!" opinion pieces that are popping up... everywhere.

Which reminds me, gotta pick up some popcorn because this is so fun to watch.

[WLJ]

My head is spinning with all the he said she said stuff and quite frankly my eyes have basically glazed over.
Was anything actually critical actually leaked in this that we should actually be concerned about?

[K Frame]

I'm still thinking that this was mostly, if not fully, intentional.

[Ron]

I'm still thinking that this was mostly, if not fully, intentional.

I've read it was intended to send a message to Europe, "we're sick of being the muscle" or some such.

It can also be a "LOOK! Squirrel!!" event.

Or, maybe our side is just sloppy.

[zxcvbob]

I appears to have happened again: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/20/pete-hegseth-signal-chat-yemen-attack

If there's any truth to this at all, this should at least be a "you're fired" event.

Is Signal an approved channel for such communications?  (at least it's encrypted)  How about using his personal phone rather than a government issued secure phone?

[RocketMan]

I believe this story.  The Guardian is just as good a news source as CNN and The Atlantic. 

[Ben]

The story doesn't have enough details. Did he release more detailed information on his personal phone than he did during the original Signal chat? Because last I saw, the original chat, while not bright, did not meet the criteria for leaking classified data.

[zxcvbob]

The story doesn't have enough details. Did he release more detailed information on his personal phone than he did during the original Signal chat? Because last I saw, the original chat, while not bright, did not meet the criteria for leaking classified data.

The New York Times broke the story but it's behind a paywall.  Everybody else is referencing NYT.  The whole thing *could* be false allegations by deep-staters at the Pentagon but I think it should be investigated.  I'm not sure who would investigate it; Congress? (impeachment)  Or Trump personally.

[dogmush]

From what I can tell the NYT is claiming they have 4 people "familiar with the contents of the chat".

At this point in the propaganda war, I reflexively don't believe anything, from either side, that only has anonymous sources.  Too often they have been hiding much of the context, or just straight up lying.