Several officials of the Trump administration who would have organized classified discussions on an open messaging platform have in the past condemned the mismanagement of files classified by others, including former President Joe Biden and the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have called for “consequences” for people who have poorly shared classified documents, whatever their intention. Defense secretary Pete Hegseth castigated Biden for having missed the “casual” documents and suggested that if he had behaved in the same way, he expected to be “in court martial”.
The condemnation language that these senior officials of the administration used on the previous violations of the protocol in the management of sensitive materials add a layer of irony to what experts call inadmissible improper use of classified information.
John Cohen, a former national security official in republican and democratic administrations, said: “From a security point of view, there is no scenario that justifies this type of information discussed on a non-governmental controlled communication platform.”
National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth Talk while President Donald Trump meets French President Emmanuel Macron at the White House Oval Office in Washington on February 24, 2025.
Brian Snyder / Reuters
“The communication of sensitive and operational information in this way increases the probability of an inappropriate disclosure which endangers military personnel,” said Cohen, who is also an ABC News contributor. “There will also be questions about the question of whether it has violated the laws governing the safeguard and retention of government information.”
More recently, many of these senior administration officials had a lot to say on the one year survey on Biden processing of classified documents. The investigation did not lead to any charge.
In January 2023, Hegseth, that a “fox & Friends weekend “Co-Host, appeared on Fox News and qualified the actions of Biden” harmful, sloppy and stupid “.
“If the top of man in work managed such casual classified documents, why was that the case? Was it really he didn’t know? When you get something from the side [Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility] If you are a senator, you know exactly what you do. You had to sneak up, “he said. The report included photos of boxes, one of which contained classified materials, including documents on Afghanistan which was found in the garage of Biden’s house in the Delaware” near a collapsed dog box, a dog bed, a zappos box, an empty bucket, a broken lamp wrapped with adhesive ribbon, synthetic fire “.
In January 2023, Rubio also appeared on Fox News, where he said: “Whenever documents have been removed from their appropriate framework – this is a problem, I don’t care.”
During his mandate as Secretary of State, Clinton attracted controversy using a private messaging server for official public communications rather than using official state -of -the -art messaging accounts on federal servers. The way many officials reacted have returned to haunt them.
In 2016, HegSeth told Fox News: “If he was someone other than Hillary Clinton, they would be in prison at the moment … because the hypothesis is in the intelligence community, if you use unscor class means, it is likely that foreign governments are targeting these accounts.”
Reacting to a politico article on Clinton, Waltz, who apparently added Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor -in -chief of the Atlantic, at the Signal cat, criticized the Ministry of Justice for its management of the situation.
“Biden’s national security advisor Jake Sullivan sent top secret messages to the private account of Hillary Clinton. And what do Doj do this? No fucking thing,” said Waltz.
In January 2016, Rubio also appeared on Fox News, demanding that Clinton be held responsible.
“No one is above the law … People will be responsible if they violate the laws of this country,” he said.
In August 2022, Stephen Miller, now Trump’s deputy chief of staff, who was also in the signal cat group, also published his reflections on X reacting to the Email Scandal of Clinton.
“A point which is not done enough on the unsecured server of Hillary illegally used to lead the affairs of the state (obviously created to hide the corrupted payment of the Clintons): foreign opponents could easily hack the classified operations & Intel in real time of the other sides of the globe, “he said.
Only two weeks ago, the director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced a repression against leaks within the intelligence community.
“Any unauthorized publication of classified information constitutes a violation of the law and will be processed as such,” she said in a press release.
