I have made many posts over the past eight years detailing why Hillary’s use of a private email server was not that big of a deal, and how the Republicans had blown the issue way out of proportion. I will not be a hypocrite today and jump on the outrage bandwagon about this mistake by Hegseth, et al. The outrage being expressed non-stop by others on the left over the past few days does not help our cause; it only illustrates that hypocrisy exists in both sides. This is just a distraction that is taking our focus away from the bigger issues, especially this administration’s systematic disregard of the most basic tenets of our Democracy.

Pete Hegseth made a mistake using the group-chat, albeit a rather serious one. But mistakes happen. I am less concerned about the mistake being made than what is being done to ensure it does not happen again.

But there is another issue that I have failed to see get mentioned. Our Vice President, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, and others, were working together to come up with a plan that could be presented to the President. They obviously felt comfortable enough to disagree with the President on issues, and were taking into account national, economical, and political angles into consideration as well when hashing out the details of their plan. This is EXACTLY HOW THE SYSTEM IS SUPPOSED TO WORK.

This administration has been a train-wreck in almost every aspect, but it is a little encouraging to see that at least some of the highest-level members are taking their job seriously and at least trying to do it properly. Almost every post I have made about this administration has been critical, and deservedly so. I do not hesitate in calling them and holding them accountable for their illegal activities. But I also will not hesitate to point out when I see things that I feel they are doing right, or at least trying to do what’s right, and seeing them work together to discuss the pros and cons of a plan instead of simply rubber-stamping Trump’s agenda is such an example.

But this does bring up another issue. One of the issues brought up about Hillary’s server was that she deleted 30,000 PERSONAL messages, which was legal. But the Signal app not only does NOT even save any messages at the server level, it also automatically deletes EVERY message on the local devices within 30 days.

Hegseth and President Trump have both stated that the conversations in that group-chat were NOT classified. If I were to file a Freedom of Information Request for those messages, how would they be able to respond? Wouldn’t the deletion of these messages be a violation of Federal Law? And wouldn’t the very use of the Signal App itself be illegal?

Remember, after January 6th, the text messages of Mark Meadows and others were subpoenaed and analyzed by the January 6th committee. Had they been using Signal back then, they would have been able circumvent the subpoenas and hide the evidence of their crimes that way.