Photo credit: www.yahoo.com
Hillary Clinton has sharply responded to the recent revelation that senior officials from the Trump administration were involved in leaking sensitive national security information on a group chat.
“You have got to be kidding me,” she remarked, adding a side-eye emoji to emphasize her disbelief.
This controversial disclosure came to light in an article by The Atlantic, which reported that high-ranking Trump officials—including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz—had engaged in discussions concerning classified military plans within a group chat on Signal, a commercial messaging platform. Notably, Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg was inadvertently included in this chat.
For Clinton, whose tenure as Secretary of State was marred by scrutiny over her use of a private email server, the situation’s irony is particularly pointed.
Several of the same officials who criticized Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign for her email practices were now implicated in this recent incident. The FBI had previously concluded that while Clinton’s handling of emails was “extremely careless,” it did not warrant criminal charges.
Rubio had previously denounced Clinton in a Fox News interview in 2015, labeling the sharing of sensitive information through insecure communication methods as “incompetence” and “inexcusable.”
Additionally, Waltz, who was responsible for adding Goldberg to the group chat, continued to invoke the Clinton email issue even in 2023, criticizing the Biden administration for sending classified messages to Clinton’s private account without facing repercussions.
Former President Trump has repeatedly called for Clinton’s prosecution regarding her email usage, often inciting the rally chant of “lock her up!”
FBI Director James Comey reignited scrutiny over Clinton’s emails just days before the 2016 election, concluding that while she had been irresponsible, there were no grounds for criminal charges. In retrospect, Clinton has suggested that Comey’s announcement was pivotal in her electoral defeat.
According to Goldberg, the modus operandi of using Signal—considered unsuitable for discussing classified information—raises significant legal concerns for the Trump administration. The established protocol dictates that discussions involving military operations should occur within designated sensitive compartmented information facilities (SCIF).
Hegseth appeared to believe the group’s communications were secure, stating in the chat, “We are currently clean on OPSEC,” while supposedly adhering to operational security protocols, even with Goldberg present in the conversation.
Source
www.yahoo.com