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Eye on the USA

Signalgate

From March 11 to 15, 2025, a group of United States national security leaders conducted a group chat on the Signal messaging service about imminent military operations against the Houthis in Yemen. Among the chat's members were Vice President JD Vance, top White House staff, three Cabinet secretaries, and the directors of two Intelligence Community agencies. A high-profile leak occurred when National Security Advisor Mike Waltz erroneously added Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of the American magazine The Atlantic, to the group.

On March 15, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth used the chat to share details of the impending airstrikes, including types of aircraft and missiles, as well as launch and attack times. The name of an active undercover female CIA officer was mentioned by the CIA director in the chat, while Vance and Hegseth expressed contempt for European allies.

The contents of the chat became public on March 24, when Goldberg published a partially redacted transcript in The Atlantic. The White House's National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes verified the chat's authenticity.[6] After other Trump administration officials disputed Goldberg's characterization of the redacted sections as likely containing classified information, The Atlantic published the entire transcript on March 25. The incident raised concerns about national security leaders' information security practices, what other sensitive information they might have revealed, whether they were following records-preservation laws, accountability in the Trump administration, and more. The political scandal and U.S. government intelligence leak has been called Signalgate.

March 29, 2025  Trump has managed to spin Signalgate as a media lapse, not a major security breach.

April 12, 2025  The Pentagon’s inspector general, Steven Stebbins, said late last week that he will open an investigation into “Signalgate,” the portmanteau for the scandal created last month when a team of high-ranking Trump officials used the commercial messaging app Signal to discuss real-time war plans, in what amounted to a massive breach of security.

The investigation will focus on Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s use of the app, rather than secure government channels, to discuss detailed information about a military strike on Houthi rebels in Yemen and whether doing so was in line with Department of Defense policy.

Yes, we have heard the term. Over and over again.
But they are still looking for the proof.

“Election fraud. You’ve heard the term,” President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday as he signed a new executive order meant to safeguard US elections by requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote in every state.

Trump won two of the presidential elections in which he was a candidate, but he’s alleged election fraud in all three.

A special commission he set up to uncover election fraud during his first presidential term did not uncover any conspiracy or widespread evidence of fraud and was disbanded.

Beware! During his second presidential term, Trump isn’t bothering with trying to identify election fraud; he’s simply moving forward with an illegal Executive Order to change the system - to be in his favor, of course.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem posed in front of El Salvador prisoners wearing $50k watch

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem posted a video Wednesday from a high-security prison in El Salvador, standing in front of a crowded cell wearing a watch with an estimated pricetag of $50,000.

Noem visited the mega-prison known as CECOT, the country's Terrorism Confinement Center, holding Venezuelan men deported under the Trump administration's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act.

"If you come to our country illegally, this is one of the consequences you could face," Noem said in the video posted on X. "This facility is one of the tools in our toolkit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people."

The watch she wears in the video was identified as an 18-karat gold Rolex Cosmograph Daytona, as first reported by the Washington Post, and reportedly sells for $50,000.

More: Trump shipped them to El Salvador. Their families say their only crime was a tattoo.

Except for President Donald Trump, presidents in recent decades have opted for more modest timepieces to avoid being labeled as elitist, according to the New York Times. For example, President Joe Biden was criticized by conservative media for wearing a $7,000 watch to his inauguration.