Senator Bill Cassidy Addresses National Security Breach, Calls it a Mistake

On Monday a shocking report revealed that national security officials accidentally included journalist Jeffrey Goldberg in a text chat with sensitive military information. Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) spoke Tuesday to Louisiana journalists about the issue and stressed that he isn't worried about the error.

National Security Information Leaked To Journalist

Jeffrey Goldberg's reporting revealed that the group chat he had been invited to included several senior government officials discussing military operation information of strikes that the U.S. carried out in Yemen over the weekend. Goldberg had been accidentally included in the group chat and the firestorm that came from his bombshell report couldn't be described as anything less than madness.

On top of the public outcry that a military official made the mistake of including an outsider in a chat of sensitive military intel, another major concern many have is that the group chat was done through the encrypted text messaging app Signal. Signal encrypts messages sent and received by users, meaning hackers won't be able to read the messages if intercepted. The problem with using Signal is that the Presidential Records Act requires all government officials to use approved ways of texting, which Signal does not.

The use of Signal might also violate the Federal Records Act because several messages in the chat were set to delete permanently from the text history, on top of the fact there's been no evidence presented that the messages in this chat were turned over to federal record.

Cassidy Believes President Trump Won't Let This Happen Again

Senator Bill Cassidy told Louisiana reporters "It was a mistake they made and [President Trump] expects them to learn from that mistake." Cassidy explained what happened was not acceptable, and strongly believes a mistake like this one won't happen again.

The Senator explained he feels no one involved in the incident should lose their job, specifically since the military operation didn't result in the death of any Americans, even then he only said, "maybe somebody gets fired."

Cassidy also explained why the app Signal was used, even though it was not an official channel for communication of military information. Cassidy told reporters Signal was used as a safety precaution because "the Chinese have been very aggressive about attempting to intercept texting messages between government officials."