The Signal messaging app is known for its anonymity & encryption. That’s part of what was so strange for people within journalism and government this past week. A perplexing, yet strangely unsurprising new scandal emerged. In this case, a scandal so odd that its veracity – and the intentions behind it – remain an open question.
According to Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic, a stunning confirmed rumor has surfaced involving Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Pete Hegseth, and several top-level U.S. security officials. As Goldberg tells it, these officials accidentally included him in a sensitive discussion on the encrypted messaging app Signal, openly contemplating strategic bombing of Houthi forces in Yemen.
Yes, you read that correctly: accidentally.
If you’ve heard this story before, you think you know it all already. But you do not. Nobody does, yet.
Doubt Everything About This Story Except the Bombs
Goldberg claims that for a time, he wasn’t even certain of the legitimacy of the conversation he’d stumbled into. That makes sense. But a lot of the story he reported, does not make sense. Soon after receiving this supposedly accidental text message, bombs did indeed begin falling exactly as discussed.
The White House itself acknowledged the authenticity of this thread and the identities of the officials involved. Even so, Hegseth and other administration mouthpieces have aggressively sought to discredit Goldberg, dismissing the reporting as a hoax or smear. Strange behavior, given their own admission of the thread’s authenticity.
This story leaves the critical thinker with a series of troubling questions:
- Is the Trump administration genuinely this inept, to mistakenly loop a prominent journalist into secret military deliberations on an app known specifically for its secure messaging capabilities?
- Or, perhaps more sinisterly, was this so-called accidental leak intentional – a calculated “accidental text on purpose,” designed either to sow confusion among adversaries, mislead the public, or shape narratives around American military engagement?
If you’re not a Larry David fan, you might be unaware of the phenomenon of an “accidental text – on purpose.”
Ineptitude, Subterfuge, or Both
The implications are alarming, whichever way you slice it. Even as most media outlets fixate predictably on the “ineptitude” angle, I’d urge deeper skepticism and vigilance. Goldberg and the Atlantic might not be complicit per se, but they’ve certainly been placed in a useful position to amplify a narrative beneficial to the Trump administration – intentionally or not.
And let’s be clear about what’s at stake here.
Corruption In the Open
Underneath the surface-level incompetence lies the darker possibility of deliberate subterfuge for personal enrichment – a hallmark of Trump’s reign. The timing of this leak aligns suspiciously with troubling financial maneuvers at the highest levels: actions designed to funnel public resources into private coffers, disguising personal gain beneath the veneer of national security concerns. Consider the recent inexplicable surge in Tesla’s stock price (+12% in one day despite overwhelming negative news).
Musk has burned through the possible liquidity he can steal from retail investors, and others have become wise to his lies. The company is teetering between -40% and -50% losses on market value since December; only a few months ago. The President of the United States held an impromptu used car sale on the White House lawn with Elon Musk recently to claim he was buying a Tesla. Most people presumed he meant a car. Few consider that Trump is using American taxpayer dollars to funnel into this failing company to keep it afloat. Essentially, a silent, covert, and highly illegal bailout package for a close friend.
This makes more sense than thinking ~$100B of new capital was really invested in Tesla after everybody including high profile shareholders close to Musk were selling off hundreds of millions of dollars in stock. This is exactly the kind of scenario I’ve long warned about on Write In Freedom – where the apparatus of the U.S. military becomes little more than a personal asset, manipulated to enrich a select few rather than protect national interests.
How Dumb Are You?
This latest incident highlights that danger more clearly than ever, as this confirmed rumor reveals behind-the-scenes contempt toward European allies who need shipping lanes near Yemen far more urgently than America does. The Signal thread’s discussions about “renumeration” for American involvement in Yemen (presumably flowing into official U.S. accounts, but who really knows at this point?) underscores how blatantly Trump’s inner circle views military force as a transactional enterprise.
Yet even now, details remain hidden, purportedly to protect military sequencing and service member safety – rendering independent public confirmation impossible. Convenient, no?
American Militarism As Big Business
In the end, the American people must confront a troubling ambiguity: was this merely an intelligence blunder of epic proportions, or is it an elaborate deception masking an economic coup right at the heart of the U.S. government?
If Goldberg and the Atlantic have unwittingly been manipulated into carrying this water – used as pawns, knowingly or not – then perhaps this glaring “mistake” could have a silver lining. Perhaps it will finally wake Congress from its complicit slumber and force long-overdue oversight, scrutiny, and accountability on an administration that has repeatedly proven itself willing to sacrifice American national security and reputation for the personal enrichment of those at the very top.
However, this cannot just be viewed as ineptitude. If it’s stupidity, it still rises to the level of total corruption. This has been obvious for a while, and many people are starting to pick up on it. But many lack the language or vision to understand truly what’s happening and how to stop it.
At the very least, this sends a chilling signal (pun fully intended) to our adversaries abroad: as Trump once declared so confidently, “the United States is run by stupid people.” Whether those people are genuinely incompetent or cynically pretending to be so, the consequences for American leadership and security remain equally grim.
Keep paying attention. Keep demanding answers.
And never underestimate the power – or the dangers – of a confirmed rumor.
