Associated Press: Bondi [Bimbo #3] signals probe into Signal chat is unlikely, despite a long history of similar inquiries

Even as President Donald Trump insisted “it’s not really an FBI thing,” the reality is that the FBI and Justice Department for decades have been responsible for enforcing Espionage Act statutes governing the mishandling — whether intentional or negligent — of national defense information like the kind shared on Signal, a publicly available app that provides encrypted communications but is not approved for classified information.

The Justice Department has broad discretion to open an investigation, though Attorney General Pam Bondi, who introduced Trump at a Justice Department event this month, signaled at an unrelated news conference on Thursday that she was disinclined to do so. She repeated Trump administration talking points that the highly sensitive information in the chat was not classified, though current and former U.S. officials have said the posting of the exact launch times of aircraft and times that bombs would be released before those pilots were even in the air would have been classified.

Pam Bondi signals probe into Signal chat is unlikely | AP News

NBC News: A DHS staffer faces serious punishment for accidentally adding a reporter to a group email

The episode, which hasn’t been previously reported, raises questions about unequal punishment for inadvertent leakers in the Trump administration.

The bigwigs run interference for one another. The little people get the shaft.

It’s what happened to a longtime Department of Homeland Security employee who told colleagues she inadvertently sent unclassified details of an upcoming Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation to a journalist in late January, according to former ICE chief of staff Jason Houser, one former DHS official and one current DHS official. (The two officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they do not want to endanger their current or future career opportunities.)

But unlike Waltz and Hegseth, who both remain in their jobs, the career DHS employee was put on administrative leave and told late last week that the agency intends to revoke her security clearance, the officials said.  

The Trump administration, meanwhile, has largely rallied around Waltz and Hegseth, with Trump on Wednesday calling it “all a witch hunt.” 

A DHS staffer faces serious punishment for accidentally adding a reporter to a group email

Daily Mail: Pete Hegseth unwittingly reveals controversial new tattoo

Creepy!

    The new tattoo revealed in the video features the Arabic word ‘kafir,’ which in the Quran means ‘disbeliever’ or ‘infidel’ and is inked below hegseth’s ‘Deus Vult’ tattoo. 

    The discovery sparked anger from activists who are already infuriated about his tattoos featuring Christian and American images. 

    ‘Hegseth just got a kafir (كافر) tattoo under his Deus Vult tattoo—a Crusader slogan. This isn’t just a personal choice; it’s a clear symbol of Islamophobia from the man overseeing U.S. wars,’ wrote Nerdeen Kiswani, a pro-Palestinian activist in New York City on social media. 

    Kiswani described the tattoos as the ‘normalization of Islamophobia at the highest levels of power.’ 

    Others on social media felt similarly about the tattoo.

    ‘The كافر/kafir tattoo in the Quran means disbeliever,’ wrote writer Tam Hussein on X. ‘To the Muslim world the tattoo will be seen as an open declaration of Hegseth’s enmity towards them.’

    Pete Hegseth unwittingly reveals controversial new tattoo | Daily Mail Online

    Robert Reich: If Trump can disappear them, he can disappear you.

    With no court to verify anything the Trump regime alleges, you could be arrested and sent to a prison in El Salvador for having views the regime dislikes

    Friends,

    Let’s say you don’t like what the Trump administration is doing, or you don’t like Trump. You express these views on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.

    You take a two-week vacation in France. When you try to return to the United States, U.S. immigration agents arrest you. They detain you in solitary confinement. They don’t let you contact your family. They don’t let you contact a lawyer. Then they send you to a brutal prison in El Salvador.

    But wait! You scream over and over. You can’t do this! I’m an American citizen!

    Your screams have no effect.

    Do you see how perilously close we are to the edge?

    If Trump can disappear them, he can disappear you.

    Wall Street Journal: Hegseth Comes Under Scrutiny for Texting Strike Details as Fallout Grows

    Republicans react with concern about new details on posts about weapons used and timing of Yemen attack

    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth came under increasing scrutiny after more details emerged Wednesday showing that he posted plans of an imminent military strike against Houthi militants, including the timing and weapon systems, on an unclassified group chat used by senior administration officials.

    Several Democrats called for his resignation, saying Hegseth had flouted longstanding security procedures for handling sensitive military information. And the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee sent a letter Wednesday requesting the Pentagon inspector general to investigate the chat.

    It asks for an assessment of Defense Department policies on sharing of sensitive and classified information on nongovernmental networks and messaging services and to examine whether any individuals transferred classified information to unclassified systems.

    “The information as published recently appears to me to be of such a sensitive nature that based on my knowledge, I would have wanted it classified,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R., Miss.), who chairs the committee told reporters. “If mistakes were made…they should be acknowledged.”

    The new messages made public by the Atlantic magazine Wednesday showed that Hegseth texted details to other senior administration officials about the specific times that F-18s, MQ-9 Reaper drones and Tomahawk cruise missiles would be used in the attack and mentions intelligence that an unnamed target of the strikes was at a “known location.” 

    Such information is normally guarded carefully by the Pentagon before imminent strikes to avoid disclosures that could help adversaries. 

    “The Signal incident is what happens when you have the most unqualified Secretary of Defense we’ve ever seen,” [Sen. Mark] Kelly wrote on X on Wednesday. “We’re lucky it didn’t cost any servicemembers their lives, but for the safety of our military and our country, Secretary Hegseth needs to resign.”

    Earlier this month, the Pentagon sent an advisory to all military personnel warning that a “vulnerability” had been identified in Signal and warned against using it for classified information.

    “It borders on incompetence,” Chuck Hagel, the former Republican senator and defense secretary during the Obama administration, said of Hegseth’s texts. “It’s certainly reckless.”

    Pete Hegseth Comes Under Scrutiny for Texting Strike Details as Signal Chat Fallout Grows – WSJ

    The Guardian: Mike Waltz left Venmo account public in further security breach – report

    National security adviser faces new scrutiny after adding journalist to group chat discussing Yemen attack plans

    If at first you don’t succeed, fail, fail, again.

    Maybe some day he’ll get it down.

    Perhaps.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/27/mike-waltz-venmo

    Meeting between King Donald and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte

    A report on a recent meeting between Trump and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, by a WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, someone who was present in the room quoted below…

    From a WH Reporter,

    “ I’ve covered a lot of Donald Trump press conferences over the years. I’ve seen him lie, deflect, and embarrass himself in countless ways. But what I just witnessed in the Oval Office may have been the most off-the-rails, unhinged display yet.

    Trump sat down with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte — a serious figure there to talk about security and alliance unity — but Trump wasn’t interested in that. No, Trump used the opportunity to fantasize about annexing Canada. He actually said, “Canada only works as a state,” and gushed about how the U.S. would look on a map if we just erased the border and took Canada as our own. This wasn’t satire. This wasn’t a joke. This was the president rambling about absorbing another sovereign nation — while the NATO secretary general sat there watching this clown show unfold.

    And it didn’t stop there. Trump started pushing the idea of conquering Greenland too, saying NATO might need to get involved in helping the U.S. take it over — as if it’s a game of Risk. He literally said we “need it for international security” and tried to rope NATO into his imperial fever dream. The look on Rutte’s face said it all.

    Then, Trump pivoted to his usual bigotry. Instead of talking about defense cooperation or global security, Trump bragged about how he uses transgender people as political pawns to rile up his base before elections — saying Republicans should “bring it up a week before the election” to win votes. In other words, he openly admitted he sees cruelty and manufactured culture war nonsense as a campaign strategy. Despicable.

    When asked about American small businesses hurting from tariffs, Trump did what he always does: lie and bluster. “You’re going to be so much richer,” he said. Meanwhile, Medicaid is being gutted, Social Security is under threat, and Trump’s billionaire cronies are cheering as the safety net burns.

    Oh, and then Trump suggested we start sending drug dealers to the Netherlands — yes, you read that right — in a bizarre attempt at humor that landed more like a diplomatic insult, especially considering the NATO secretary general used to be the prime minister of the Netherlands.

    He kept rambling about how the U.S. doesn’t need anything from Canada, said the European Union is “very nasty,” claimed we can’t sell cars in Europe (not true), and then told an utterly deranged story about how he “invaded Los Angeles” to turn on the water — another lie pulled from his fantasyland. What actually happened was that he diverted water from Northern California, destroying farmland and hurting his own voters in the process.

    To top it off, he said our allies shouldn’t worry about Putin, brushing off any concerns about Russian aggression with a shrug.

    Let me be blunt: This is not normal. This is not politics-as-usual. This is a dangerous, unstable person with authoritarian fantasies, spewing nonsense in front of our closest allies while the world watches.”

    Keep speaking up. Don’t accept any of this as normal.

    Ben Meiselas

    https://www.facebook.com/claudia.scholand/posts/10165155546228345

    Axios: Trump’s “pro-Hamas” purge could block foreign students from colleges

    The Trump administration is discussing plans to try to block certain colleges from having any foreign students if it decides too many are “pro-Hamas,” senior Justice and State Department officials tell Axios.

    • A senior State Department official called the demonstrators it’s targeting “Hamasniks” — people the government claims have shown support for the terror group.
    • More than 300 foreign students have had their student visas revoked in the three weeks “Catch and Revoke” has been in operation, the official said. There are 1.5 million student visa-holders nationwide.
    • “Everyone is fair game,” the official said.

    Exclusive: Trump’s “pro-Hamas” purge could block foreign students from colleges