Opinion | The worst part of the debacle of the group chat of Pete Hegseth

In this episode of “The Opisions”, the editorialist of the New York Times Opinion David French breaks down the security concerns behind the military discussions of the Trump administration on the Signal App and on the consequences that this violation of safety could have on American security and on military strategy.

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David French: I am editorialist of the New York Times and I am a former Jag officer, a lawyer lawyer. At the beginning of this week, we discovered that Jeffrey Goldberg, editor -in -chief of the Atlantic, received an invitation from the national security councilor, Michael Waltz, to join a signal group chat.

Broadcast News Audio Clip: He was organized in a group chat with several officials of the High Rango White House and received several messages that discussed plans to bomb Houthi objectives in Yemen.

Jeffrey Goldberg’s audio clip: He was sending messages to attack plans, when the objectives would have been targeted, as they would be targeted, who were at the objectives, when the next sequence of attacks were happening.

This is an absolutely incredible violation of security. I contributed to investigating numerous accusations of escape from classified information and I have never heard of anything in this way. This is extraordinary.

There are so many ways in which the sharing of war plans is among the most eclaid forms of safety violation. It is difficult to think of a form of security violation that is worse than that. But apart from that, there is now a public vision of the conversations that were to be private.

You have the vice -president who questioned the President’s judgment. You have the vice -president who gets in our allies. I know it is something they also make publicly, but there is a difference between public communication and private communication. Private communication has never been intended for allies. So all these things are damaging diplomatically. They are damaged politically. They are damaging militarily and, in the worst scenario, they could be catastrophically dangerous for American life.

It should be obvious for people who share the plans for an attachment hours before the attack can create problems, but we become a little more specific: the Houthi could remove some of their weapons from targeted places. They could remove high officials from targeted places so that the strikes are less effective. They could choose, for example, to launch missiles themselves to attack before being attacked, an action that could be incredibly expensive in lives and ships. They could move their senior leaders.

The administration is now saying that there was nothing classified in the chat and they were really not war plans, in many ways, launching clips on the integrity of Goldberg. In fact, when Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, confronted these facts, attacked Goldberg and did not recognize his offense. But there is no living officer whose career would survive a violation of security like this.

From the very first weeks in which you are a member of the army, you start knowing operational safety. This is practiced in officers. And these consequences would be an immediate relief from the command.

I saw it with my eyes. I was part of this process. You would have a relief from the command followed by a complete investigation and potentially criminal accusations. In the army, you would recommend to an officer to look for a lawyer, to get a lawyer immediately, because the criminal investigations would be equally instantaneous.

In the civil context and Pete Hegseth is a civilian, there should be an immediate investigation by the Department of Justice on how it happened. Why were they using the Signal app, which the Pentagon has warned the members of the military against use for the Defense Department? Who was in chat? Were they publishing us directly? Were they publishing via subordinate? How many times is sensitive affairs on the signal conducted?

There are so many questions that arise to which the Department of Justice should answer.

And I mentioned criminal accusations: the federal law makes it a crime when a person, out of severe negligence, removes information relating to national defense from his own place of custody and is delivered to anyone in violation of trust or is lost, stolen, abstract or destroyed. It is too early to say whether hegseth’s incompetence is also criminal, but I raise the possibility of demonstrating the pure entity of the error, a violation of the safety that this significant requires an in -depth investigation. I can assure you that a signal chat is not the right place to share sensitive information on the next American strikes.

The round of the White House is ridiculous. He is weak. They said that there were no shared royal war plans.

Audio Clip of President Trump: The attack had a total success. It was, I imagine, from what I understood, it took place during. And it was not classified information. So this was not classified.

Hegseth attacked Goldberg, who behaved incredibly responsibly in all this. He did not share the information on national security that entered his possession. He hasn’t shared him yet. This is a very responsible thing to do for a journalist, but it was attached mercilessly.

And then minimize the information. They say they were not real war plans. Well, if this is not a big problem, if these were not real war plans, they could release what was in the chat so that the Americans could see on their own. But so far they are not doing it.

The way to manage a security violation in this way is immediately, especially in the case of Hegseth, to suspend it from its functions awaiting investigations. And I would say the same with the national security councilor, who inadvertently brought Goldberg to the chat.

The only thing that prevents me from saying “suspend all those who are in that chat” is that you would empty the administration in a moment of true crisis globally.

Nothing destroys the credibility of a leader with the most deeply separated soldiers of hypocrisy or double standards. When leaders break the rules that impose on soldiers, they break the bond of trust between soldiers and commanders. The best commanders I knew did not ask a soldier to respect a rule that did not follow. The best commanders led by the example. So what example did Hegseth give? Which is politically loyal, but also that it is negligent? And when you are negligent in the army, people can die. And that’s why I say, if he has any honor, he will resign.

Finally, the implications for national security are serious. The reason why I say that it is to urge the listeners not to look at this accident in isolation. This accident is taking place in a wider context. If this door of action holds, which is the administration, try to sweep it away and does not take into account anyone, then what you have had is a further reaffirmation that the American military are becoming a political military.

So you had the president of the joint leaders, the main lawyers in the army, the officers of JAG, the Generali Jag in the army, raised for political reasons. So you kept the defense secretary despite the fact that he violated any operational security standards in a way that would lead any other soldier to face dramatic consequences. It is still in office and, since this registration, there seems to be no indication that will resign or that will be fired.

So what does this say? He says we are replacing the professionalism standards with standards of political loyalty. I have seen much greater consequences apply to members of the service for very minor security violations of the type of handwand that we are now seeing from the administration, where it is minimizing what has happened, denying that it is significant. This is not the way in which any other soldier would be treated in similar circumstances, but the rule is that there is a standard for sorceress, in particular the lealists of Maga, and there are other standards for all the others.

And if you make the American military more political than professionals, then make the American military more similar to Russian military. Make the American military more similar to the military of the totalitarian states. And as much as many as many of those soldiers can look on paper, I guarantee you political soldiers, a pound for pound, they are much less effective than the professional military.

The stake is: what are we doing to the culture of the United States army? Are we saying that the days of professionalism ended up and that the days for political loyalty began?

Thoughts? Send us an and -mail to theopinions@nytimes.com.

This episode of “The Opisions” was produced by Vishakha Darbha. He was edited by Alison Bruzek and Kaari Pitkin. Mixing from Carole Sabouraud. Original music by Carole Sabouraud and Pat McCusker. Control of the events of Mary Marge Locker. Shannon Busta and Kristina Samuewski public strategy. The director of the opinion audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

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