Publish the Leaked Trump Texts
Publish the Leaked Trump Texts

Publish the Leaked Trump Texts

The Atlantic announced today that its editor was inadvertently added to a group text including the Vice President, CIA Director, Secretary of Defense and National Security Advisor where they discussed Yemen war moves and other matters of national security. The Trump administration’s carelessness would soon be outdone by the squeamishness of the magazine.
Editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg took the scoop of a lifetime and chose to act as gatekeeper, publishing only the most innocuous tidbits like what emojis different officials used and their goofy backslapping instead of the actual news. It is one of the worst cases of media paternalism, what I call highchair journalism — open up for your infotainment, here comes the airplane: Trump officials used emojis, LOL! — but also a disturbing reminder of how much the mainstream media have been co-opted by the national security state.
Goldberg makes clear in his article that his standard for publication isn’t newsworthiness, but the mere possibility that the information “could conceivably” be used by adversaries of the United States. The media isn’t or shouldn’t be in the business of helping the government. Like an attorney, the media are supposed to have a duty to their client, the public.
Consider how Goldberg describes his decision to not publish a text sent by CIA Director John Ratcliffe based merely on the possibility that the information “might be interpreted as related to” ongoing intelligence matters:
Then, at 8:26 a.m., a message landed in my Signal app from the user “John Ratcliffe.” The message contained information that might be interpreted as related to actual and current intelligence operations.”
That’s exactly the kind of news the public needs. Is the Houthi campaign cover for a broader war with Iran? How serious is the Trump administration’s consideration of the effects? Or the potential for escalation? Or the potential for any kind of success?
Publishing classified information, no matter how innocuous or unharmful, is still illegal and it would be a dumb fucking thing for The Atlantic, or even a private citizen* to do.
However I'm to understand that since then a government representative has said that nothing in the conversation was classified and The Atlantic is now considering whether to publish everything.
Absolutely nothing about this story indicates that The Atlantic or any of its employees are "working for the government" or anything like that. They were just trying to not break any long-standing laws that 100% would land them in prison for a long time.
This is a great example if Occam's Razor. Is it all a conspiracy between the government and a news organization in good standing (ie not Fox News/OAN/etc)? No, somebody just didn't want to go to prison for a stupid reason, so he held back a little to play it safe.
*of course private citizens have published classified material before and they did us a great service by doing so, BUT that information was, generally, worth it
The Republicans involved are lying and saying it's not confidential when infact it is. That is the sole reason it hasn't been leaked.
He will go to jail if he releases them, but they can lie about it with impunity.
Citation needed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United_States
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/403/713/
We've got pretty good case law to show that freedom of the press goes pretty far, and that since the public has a pretty clear interest in the information it's pretty much a given they can publish it.
If they prosecuted the Atlantic for it, they'd also need to hold that whoever sent them the classified information was guilty of the same offense.
That was worth it. The chat messages seem to be boring war plans and verbal attacks on Europe. There seems to be little public service value in the unpublished.