A retired general tore into Trump Cabinet members for endangering military personnel by using a messaging app to discuss military strikes.
“This was an egregious breach of security that put Navy combat fliers at risk,” Barry McCaffrey, a four star general, told MSNBC’s José Díaz-Balart on Wednesday.
“If this had been a Navy Lieutenant commander talking to an Air Force Major, they both would’ve been fired and probably court martialed.”
McCaffrey stated that Trump officials should have never planned the bombing of Houthi forces in Yemen on the Signal app, stating that it was “obviously” classified as it was a “pending military operation.”
President Donald Trump and other members of the group chat, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard have all tried to shrug off The Atlantic's bombshell report, claiming that no classified information was exchanged in the group chat.
“I’ll reiterate that there was no classified material that was shared,” Gabbard insisted under oath before a Senate panel Tuesday.
But on Wednesday, Hegseth was revealed to have texted the exact timings of when U.S. military fighter pilots would launch their attacks, after previously redacted messages were released.
“TIME NOW (1144et): Weather is FAVORABLE. Just CONFIRMED w/CENTCOM we are a GO for mission launch,” Hegseth wrote, continuing, “1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package).”
McCaffrey said the use of the Signal app was a “major breach in protocol” and showed “outrageous incompetence on the part of the most senior officers in government.”
The general, who retired in 1996 after serving in the Vietnam War and the Gulf War, stressed that officials should have used the “multi-million dollar” systems specifically designed for discussing sensitive military operations, such as a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF).
He argued that it was now crucial to investigate what else might have been leaked to adversaries from the group chat.
“We should also assume that, if you’re not in government systems, you’re on commercial encryption, many foreign intelligence agencies have probably penetrated it,” he said.
