The discovery that senior Trump staffers had exposed national security information on a group conversation prompted a scathing response from Hillary Clinton. She included a side-eye emoji with the message, “You have got to be kidding me.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz were among the Trump administration officials who discussed highly classified war plans in a group chat on the for-profit messaging app Signal, according to a shocking report released by The Atlantic on Monday. Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of Atlantic, had unintentionally joined the conversation.
Hillary Clinton just responded to the report of the leaked group chat with Trump officials’ “war plans.”
“You have got to be kidding me.” pic.twitter.com/rjXSs2T6Ip
— Gracella (@be_grace01) March 24, 2025
The irony is rich for Clinton, whose use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state was the subject of constant assaults during her 2016 campaign.
Some of the same officials who stoked a political tempest during the 2016 campaign over Clinton’s use of the State Department’s private email server—which the FBI ultimately determined was “extremely careless” but not illegal—were also involved in Monday’s disaster.
Rubio blasted Clinton in a Fox News interview in 2015, saying, “The exposure of sensitive information to foreign intelligence agencies by communicating in an insecure manner is incompetence, it is malpractice, it’s inexcusable.”
Waltz, who was the one who invited Goldberg to the group chat, and he was still bringing up Clinton’s emails in 2023. “Biden’s sitting National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan sent Top Secret messages to Hillary Clinton’s private account. And what did the DOJ do about it? Not a damn thing,” he posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) at the time.
Trump has also called for Clinton to be jailed repeatedly for her use of private mail, which led to chants of “lock her up!” at rallies.
Eleven days prior to the election, FBI Director James Comey launched an investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email. Clinton insisted that it was “the determining factor” in her defeat, even though the inquiry came to the same conclusion two days prior to the election: that she had been “careless” but had not committed any crimes.
“IT’S EATING HER UP INSIDE” — @mirandadevine absolutely scorches a “malicious, bitter and reckless” Hillary Clinton.
This is 🔥🔥🔥
DEVINE: “The angst that she felt about missing out to becoming president, to Trump, of all people, has just festered inside her all these years.”… pic.twitter.com/yjQi7YfrKV
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) September 29, 2024
According to Goldberg, the administration may have broken multiple laws by discussing extremely sensitive national security plans over the Signal app, which is not authorized for communicating confidential material.
He claimed that since officials have designated areas known as sensitive compartment information facilities (SCIF) for discussing military activities, the conversation should not have been used for that purpose.
Hegseth, meanwhile, was apparently under the impression that security was airtight all along. “We are currently clean on OPSEC,” he texted the chat, claiming the group was complying with “operational security” while Goldberg was still in the chat.
