I have no argument that this is all a colossal fuckup, but both Signal chats happened before he got caught. Who knows what he’s been up to since then.
That’s fair. I wasn’t thinking about it happening before the public bust. One does shudder to think how much vital info might have gotten into the wrong hands over the last three months.
I don’t think this is the problem that they are trying to solve. The problem they are trying to solve is how to communicate in a manner that doesn’t leave any traces behind for future law enforcement to use as a basis for criminal charges.
They all do it and most likely on the orders of the boss, who really hates it when people take notes on his criminal conspiracies.
Given his history of heavy drinking, it may be they’re used to drunk texts saying, “Hey, remind me tomorrow I want to buy a bitchin’ Camaro bomb Yemen.”
On a general note, I’m still puzzled why Trump didn’t pull the “Acting Secretary” trick. Of course, there’s much less possibility of any of them getting fired this time.
Ok, this just makes me laugh and laugh, even if it’s a slip of the tongue. Here’s hoping their misstatements about Kegsbreath becomes reality.
Strangely enough, standing behind someone is the best position for stabbing them in the back.
“Acting” officials have less formal authority and power. It’s supposed to be a temporary position. A lot of the broad departmental changes and goal-setting that Hegseth has enacted couldn’t have happened if he were an Acting Secretary.
“Couldn’t” or “Shouldn’t?” Who would be in a position to enforce that?
Wouldn’t the pool of qualified people to be “acting” have been composed mainly of Biden folks?
My understanding (please correct me if I’m wrong) is that only someone who currently holds a Senate-confirmed position can be appointed in an “acting” capacity?
So when Trump came to office in January, there wouldn’t have been many Trump-loyalists already in the public service who could be appointed “acting”?
Yeah, that’s another problem. The people qualified would be ones who have already been confirmed by the Senate for some position, even if not in the specific Department they’re going to. And limited to serve in that role for some amount of time (200 days? 300?).
If the question is “what if they just don’t pay attention to the relevant laws for those?”, well sure that could happen. But then, none of this really matters if there’s not at least fig leaf adherence to existing law.
They’ll adhere to the fig leaf until it gets in their way. Then it will be “we’re in an unusual situation because [something] and need to do this anyway.”
It’s reported tonight that Hegseth supposedly installed Signal on his office computer in the Pentagon to get around the ban on cell phones in secure areas. Words fail me.
It’s only just come to my notice (sorry, a foreigner here) that Hegseth was previously a Fox News host. A FOX NEWS HOST?? It may be redundant, but how the fuck does a news host get to be Secretary of Defence?
Gobsmacked. And yes, I know, I shouldn’t be…this is all par for the course of the Fuckstick’s administration, but really?
It’s the modern version of the parent’s bedtime reassurance. “Yes, dear, it’s true. If you sufficiently slobber on the Orange Deity’s backside, you can be anything you want to be.”
Ironically, this is civilian command coming back to bite us in the ass. The rule prohibiting active or recent military officers from being SecDef unintentionally allows unqualified jokes like Hegseth to be SecDef. (Yes, I know, Hegseth was in the National Guard. But a 4-star active general would be much better.)
That’s not really the cause of Hegseth. We’ve had retired generals be SecDef before. Trump could have found one to nominate. What really is the cause is that the Senate should have rejected this bozo immediately.
Since Gaetz dropped his nomination, they should have been stricter on the rest of the nominations. But they still let this nimwit slip through.
The current Senate works for trump. Period.
The whole point of the trump administration criminal regime is to cripple, and ideally destroy, a) the federal government, and b) the US economy.
Hegseth is a stellar example of success by those metrics. He’s not going to be replaced; he’s doing great gouts of trumply double-plus goodness.
Plus (c) the destruction of the USA/European alliance, weakening the West, destroying NATO, and opening the way for Putin to expand his hegemony.
Russia’s investment in Trump is paying off bigly.