April 12th, 2025.

It was just 20 days ago on March 24th,

that editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg,

reported that the most senior members of the Trump administration

discussed a military strike on the Houthis in Yemen

on an unsecure commercial messaging app

and that they included him on the chat.

Their signal chat, which Goldberg published later

in response to the administration's insistence

that there was nothing classified in the

chat showed that Secretary of Defense Pete Hagsith had posted precise details of the munitions and planes

involved in the strikes. It showed that neither President Donald Trump nor the acting chairman

of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a Biden appointee, was on the chat,

and that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller apparently made the decision to strike

based on his interpretation of what President Donald Trump wanted. In violation of the Presidential

Records Act, the app was set to delete the messages.

There was apparently no larger strategy or diplomatic plan other than to strike,

and participants greeted the news of the collapse of an apartment building

into which a hoothy leader had allegedly walked with emojis of fists, fire, and a U.S.

flag.

This extraordinary lapse in national security protections would normally have defined an administration

and caused a number of resignations, but the White House called the case closed on March 31st. And there was more.

...