You’ll never guess whom the New York Times chose to criticize the Trump team.
You’ve probably noticed more than a little criticism around these parts for the administration discussing the plans to attack the Houthis and inadvertently looping in Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg. You can agree with us or disagree with us, but at least none of us has committed the sin (or crime?) that is alleged to have occurred here, leaking classified information. And a few among us have U.S. government national security clearances, or have had them in the past.
The op-ed page of the New York Times could have gotten anyone in the world to criticize Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, and the rest of the Trump team over this matter. Absolutely anybody, any expert on the subject, any former official who has handled this kind of sensitive information. But guess who they published this morning?
I’ll bet you can guess who would have the nerve to write this . . .
It’s not the hypocrisy that bothers me; it’s the stupidity. We’re all shocked — shocked! — that President Trump and his team don’t actually care about protecting classified information or federal record retention laws. But we knew that already. What’s much worse is that top Trump administration officials put our troops in jeopardy by sharing military plans on a commercial messaging app and unwittingly invited a journalist into the chat. That’s dangerous. And it’s just dumb.
That’s right. Hillary Clinton.
The woman who had plenty of classified information in her emails, who said she “wasn’t thinking” about whether her emails were sufficiently secure when she started her work as secretary of state, and who lied at least eight times about what was in her emails. The same Hillary Clinton who former FBI director James Comey said was “extremely careless in [her] handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”
Almost literally anyone else on earth is on more solid ground when it comes to criticizing the Trump team for being reckless and sloppy with protecting America’s secrets. What, was Julian Assange not available? No Edward Snowden? I guess the only reason the Times didn’t run an op-ed by Sandy Berger is because he died in 2o15.