Both those gentlemen, Gabbard and the VP were officers in military and know damn well they shouldn’t have been typing anything even hinting at plans on an app.
Unless as you are alluding to Mdwest that there was a purpose for leaking it. And those details might come out in the closed session.
We're saying the same thing... Gabbard and Vance both would be aware of NIPR, SIPR, and other less known systems that are in place for the sharing of sensitive information.. in their positions in the military (even with Vance being a low ranking enlisted guy and Gabbard being an MP guardsman) they both would very likely have used a variety of systems for group real time communication that are DOD approved/authorized.. Although I doubt either of them had cause to hold a clearance higher than SECRET in the positions they held while serving in the military (TS would have come from fed govt positions that they obtained later)..
Hegseth was commissioned, but I doubt any position he held while serving required a clearance higher than SECRET either based on what I know about his career.. but again, he would be well aware of NIPR, SIPR, and other systems Im referencing that are used for communicating classified information..
Waltz is a former Special Forces officer (field grade).. he absolutely has been exposed to, and has used the systems Im alluding to... and certainly has held a TS clearance for many years before moving into politics..
But they collectively chose to use Signal?
And somehow by "accident" a known adversary gets included in their discussion group? And not only does no one notice when that person gets included.. but no one notices through the entire length of the discussion?
That doesn't smell of incompetence to me when you consider the players involved and the subject matter involved..
That smells of a purposefully executed action..
Id argue that whatever the purpose was, it was stupid.. and clearly backfired...
But you're going to have a very hard time convincing me this was an innocent (or not so innocent) "mistake"..
Waltz and I served in the same battalion (although he is a few year groups behind me and I was leaving the unit about the time he came to it).. as a result, I personally know a handful of people that served directly with him.. By all accounts he is no idiot.. in fact everyone I have talked to that has worked with him declares him to be nothing shy of a brilliant tactician, a solid leader, and extremely detail oriented/focused.. these arent the sort of "mistakes" he would make..
Something definitely isn't "right" about all of this... I definitely don't think it was an "oops"..