Republicans must provide the American public with accountability about how Pete Hegseth breached national security

A ‘gross error’ that needs to be punished

Trump's Defense SecretaryPete Hegseth must be fired❗

Pete Hegseth would get so drunk that he needed to be carried out events and described one incident where he had to be restrained while drunk.  (The New Yorker) - "Whiskileaks"

Donald Trump’s top national security aides shared sensitive military plans with a journalist by accident. Junior military officers would be fired for far less.

It is a story so fantastic that one would have thought it the product of a skilled satirist’s imagination. 

But, it appears to be true: As reported by The Atlantic, Donald Trump’s most senior national security aides shared detailed and highly sensitive information about an impending military attack on Yemen in an encrypted text thread that included a journalist.

That Atlantic editor and journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg, didn’t quite believe the thread was real. Until, that is, missiles started exploding in Yemen at roughly the time appointed in the text thread — and group chat members began high-fiving with emojis, like teenagers after a successful prank. 

Later, a National Security Council spokesperson confirmed to Goldberg that the texts, which were sent using the Signal messaging system Signal, were authentic.

Predictably, the incompetent Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has bluntly denied, without explanation, that “war plans” were shared. But this was perhaps an attempt to hide behind a semantic difference between the very specific information shared with Goldberg and the more formal plans sent to military commanders across secure military communication lines. 

Given the preciseness of the information reported by Goldberg, that would be a difference without distinction.

Meanwhile, Trump himself told reporters on Monday that he knew nothing ❓of the story😕😟😲 — perhaps the surest tell that it was true. By Tuesday, White House press secretary (Barbie's clone- Karoline Leavitt) was insisting that no classified information was shared, all while Trump was telling NBC News that a staff member was to blame for the breach. 😒😵❓

He also defended his national security adviser, Michael Waltz — whom The Atlantic described as having created the group chat — as “a good man” who had “learned a lesson.”

All that feels like a prelude to dismissing the debacle as inconsequential. For that reason, it is incumbent on congressional Republicans to insist that accountability❗ be rendered. 

Such firmness with the Trump White House would, to be sure, not be in keeping with the ruling party’s (GOP's not acceptable- Senator Susan Susan Collins alert❗) kid-gloves approach to Tump thus far. 

But, the savviest among their GOP caucus should be enraged❗: This breach not a simple case of hacksaw budget cutting or inept policy making. Instead,  it was a breach of breathtaking proportions, one that could have endangered lives and seriously undermined national security.

That was the argument Trump used against Secretary Hillary Clinton over and over again in 2016: that she had endangered national security by using a private email account and then deleted emails that should have been archived. Far be it from Trump to acknowledge that his national security team might have done something as bad or worse. But Republicans who understand military operational security should know better.

In the military itself, the first course of action would be a rigorous investigation and, where fault was found, decisive punishment. Alternatively, as David French, a former military (JAG) lawyer, argues in The New York Times, Hegseth could take the honorable path and resign as a way of showing the nation’s more than 1 million troops — whose welfare he is charged with overseeing — that he puts their safety ahead of his career.

This is what General Stanley McChrystal did for a far less serious offense. In 2010, when he was the head of military operations in Afghanistan, McChrystal and his aides were quoted by a Rolling Stone author denigrating civilian leaders, including then-Vice President Joe Biden. 

In fact, McChrystal, arguably the best general of his generation, did not criticize then-President Obama directly. 

Nevertheless, when the story went public, the general apologized and offered his resignation, which Obama promptly accepted.

Beyond Hegseth, there were plenty of others whose incompetence was brilliantly on display throughout this dismal episode. According to The Atlantic, the chat group listed Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard as participants.

There is a reason highly sensitive information should be shared only on the government’s most secure communications channels. Surely Ratcliffe and Gabbard understand cellphones can be hacked and that texts can be sent to the wrong people. Why didn’t they raise objections?

It is essential for the nation’s security, then, that Republicans who comprehend what is at stake in this sorry episode stand up for what is right. Representative Don Bacon, a Republican from Nebraska who was an Air Force intelligence officer, has done the right thing, calling the affair a “gross error.” “I would have lost my security clearance in the Air Force for this and for a lot less,” he told CNN.

Other Republicans should follow his lead, starting with Senator Tom Cotton (aka "Cotton Balls Cotton), a former Army officer who led troops in Iraq and Afghanistan; Senator Joni Ernst, the first female combat veteran in the Senate; Senator Lindsey Graham, a former Air Force National Guard lawyer; and Representative Mike Gallagher, a former Marine Corps intelligence officer.

Democrats can, and should, raise their voices. But the voices that matter the most should be Republican. Be they loud or soft, public or private, they need to let the administration know that this breach cannot go unpunished.