Clean on OpSec: Pete Hegseth Spilled Specific Details of an Attack in Advance

The Atlantic has published the texts (except for one naming a CIA officer whose name John Ratcliffe insists is not classified) it earlier withheld.

The White House is frantically spinning, claiming these attack plans — the likes of which both Tulsi Gabbard and Ratcliffe claimed not to recall in sworn testimony yesterday — don’t amount to “war plans.”

Karoline Leavitt is even sniping at the Wall Street Journal for its shock that Steve Witkoff was on the Signal chat thread while meeting with Putin at the Kremlin.

A real security scandal is that the Signal chat apparently included Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s envoy to wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. Press reports say Mr. Witkoff was receiving these messages on the commercial app while in Moscow. This is security malpractice. Russian intelligence services must be listening to Mr. Witkoff’s every eyebrow flutter. This adds to the building perception that Mr. Witkoff, the President’s friend from New York, is out of his depth in dealing with world crises.

The meaning of Leavitt’s rebuttal is not remotely clear.

.@SteveWitkoff
was provided a secure line of communication by the U.S. Government, and it was the only phone he had in his possession while in Moscow.

If the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board cared about the truth, they could have reached out to our team for comment before running these lies.

This is classic Fake News from an outlet clearly determined to knock Steve Witkoff, who is a great patriot working effectively on behalf of President Trump to secure world peace.

She’s not denying he had Signal on the device with which he traveled (nor explained what devices he has had on his other international travels).

Update: Witkoff makes it more clear. The personal phone on which he was discussing military operations was at home.

I am incredulous that a good newspaper like the@WSJ would not check with me as to whether I had any personal devices with me on either of my trips to Moscow. If they had, they would have known the truth. Which is, I only had with me a secure phone provided by the government for special circumstances when you travel to regions where you do not want your devices compromised. That is why CBS News reported that Goldberg himself said that he “has not recounted Witkoff making any comments in that group chat until Saturday, after he left Russia and returned to the U.S.”. Guess why? Because I had no access to my personal devices until I returned from my trip. That is the responsible way for me to make these trips and that is how I always conduct myself. Maybe it is time for media outlets like the Journal to acknowledge when some of their people make serious reporting mistakes like this. I would appreciate it if the WSJ and other media outlets check with me the next time they make serious allegations. Thank you.

The desperate panic to deny the gravity of this situation, however, is a real testament to the contempt in which the White House holds the men and women whose lives were put at risk — may still be at risk — because their Defense Secretary is so incompetent he can’t bother with the least little OpSec.