Political Quotes

“Mr. President, earlier today, The Atlantic magazine released a stunning and alarming report about the accidental leaking of the Trump administration's coordination on classified military operations targeting the Houthis in Yemen. According to the report, a member of the press was somehow added to an unsecured text chain with the Vice President, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, the CIA Director, and other national security officials. The text chain was not a secure conversation. The app used is not approved for discussing classified military operations. Nevertheless, on this text chain, conversations went at length about imminent military operations, including specific targets, weapons, and attack plans. These text messages very likely included classified U.S. intelligence. The entire time, nobody seemed to realize that a private citizen without security clearance had access to this conversation. This is one of the most stunning breaches of military intelligence that I have read about in a very, very long time. What we have here are senior U.S. leaders, including the Vice President and Secretary of Defense, having classified discussions of military action over an unsecure app. It is bad enough that a private citizen was added to this chain, but it is far worse that sensitive military information was exchanged on an unauthorized application, especially when that sensitive military information was so, so important.…”