Judging Freedom - LtCOL. Karen Kwiatkowski: Does Hegseth Know Whom He Is Killing?

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

LtCOL. Karen Kwiatkowski: Does Hegseth Know Whom He Is Killing?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

you Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, March 25th, 2025. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski joins us now. Colonel, always a pleasure. My dear friend, thank you for joining us. Let's get right to this issue, which is captivating the country as we speak. And that is a text grouping of the Trump administration's senior-most national security officials, plus Steve Witkoff, who was technically not in the government or the administration, but is the president's emissary to all the hotspots, discussing the bombing of the Houthis, to which a journalist by the name of Jeffrey Goldberg was apparently invited by Mike Walsh, either directly or indirectly, intentionally or inadvertently. This will eventually come out. What is your take on

this using the Signal app to engage in conversations or communications of the highest level advice to the president nature of military equipment Identity of the targets identity of the human beings the targets wanted to kill they wanted to kill Yeah, yeah, you know it occurs to me that that signal you remember when Trump Transitioned with this team and a lot of these same folks were on his transition team He knew who he was going to appoint. And you know, he said he was going to privately fund that because he last time he transitioned into the presidency he was spied upon by government networks. And so they used Signal. And so they're used to using Signal. They've been using it.

I don't know how the journalists got on board with it. I mean how I guess Waltz added him, but I don't understand how that happened. But this is something that we railed against when Hillary Clinton wanted to use her Blackberry, when Hillary Clinton used Yahoo Mail or Google Mail to do government business, so it wouldn't be subject to FOIA. And clearly, that's, I think, one of the perceived advantages of using signal

illegally like this. I mean it is, it's not correct. It is not allowed, it's not approved use for government communications. And it's also not FOIA-able, which is a problem. I mean, you know, Trump is trying to make the government transparent. And for all we know, this was done on purpose to make the government transparent. I don't know this was done on purpose to make the government transparent I don't know. I mean I I doubt it, but it may have that same effect Among the people on the call apparently according to Goldberg's notes Was the director of national intelligence? among whose Respons responsibilities is to secure

the nation's secrets. Now, Colonel, you know that something can be secret, it can be top secret, but they never classified it. Wouldn't a decision like when to bomb, who to bomb, and who specifically to kill, wouldn't that be in the nature of secret data? Absolutely, because of the timing. If this had been an aftermath discussion, like, oh, wow,

great, and we only heard that part of it, that's one thing. But this was imminent. They were discussing something that had not yet happened, that was going to happen, and that needed and required secrecy in order to make it effective. So I don't understand how stupid they can be to not be sure. Well, again, they're using a system. Signal is not designed to protect government information, and it's also not approved to protect the government information So the tool itself is is not appropriate

To protect the data so they shouldn't be using it all together. You know that that goes without saying but clearly yeah This is the kind of thing they would have been discussing either in person in a in a skiff or a secure facility Or they would be discussing it on you know the secure Intel link. Here's Senator John Ossoff of Georgia attempting to grill I say attempting because Sir John Ratcliffe the director of central intelligence doesn't want to give an answer but anyway here's Senator Ossoff grilling Director Ratcliffe about whether the content is useful to foreign governments that wish us harm. Cut number two.

And they were discussing the timing of sending US air crews into enemy airspace where they faced an air defense threat, correct? I'm going to, Senator, defer to the other principles that you're referring to about what the meaning and the context of what they were on. They're talking about the timing of US air strikes, correct? Yes. Yes. Yes, and therefore the timing of sending US air crews into hostile airspace, correct?

Yes. And therefore the time period during which enemy air defenses could target US air crews flying in enemy airspace, correct? I don't know that. You do know that. Let me ask this question, General Hawk. You lead America's signals intelligence collection.

Would the private deliberation of foreign senior officials about the wisdom and timing of potential military action be a collection priority for you and the U.S. intelligence community? Senator, it's our job to do indications and warning for both the plans and intentions of adversary leaders and for military commanders. And would not information about the timing of airstrikes allow a military to pre-position

or cue air defense systems to shoot down enemy aircraft. I think Senator the from our perspective any any advance warning is something that we certainly are trying to protect. Was this guy an officer in the Air Force this four star? This is how they get promoted. He must have been a buck private that worked for you and he never learned anything from you. He can't answer a question straight. No, no, he's not allowed. He's not, you know, he don't want to risk his job to tell the direct answer.

Those questions were very good. Yes. I'm not familiar with that particular guy, the congressman or senator or whatever, but the questions were excellent. And they need to be asked on a lot of things. Also, he should have asked too, have when did we, you know, I know we have an approved operation in the Red Sea, but this hootie operation now is really out of Israel. I mean, this is Israeli, you know, we're supporting Israel directly on this and the president, honestly, we need to continue to ask have we declared war with all of the nations that we are fighting and bombing? That's another response.

I know that is something, it's funny you should mention that Karen, because I didn't watch the whole hearing. Chris did when he cut many, many clips from it. But I didn't hear from the parts that I watched or from any of the news reports, any comments about starting a war without congressional authorization? Do these people just assume that the president can bomb and kill whoever he wants?

Yeah. Well, they've got this weird, you know, the UA that they expanded on, you know, 25 years ago for Iraq or whatever, and then they keep adding places to it, acting as if that substitutes for unchecked war. They're hiding behind their, I forget what the UA stands for, it's an authorization they give to the president. That's not war, it's an authorization to use force in these various countries.

I don't know what Congress is doing, I don't know what they do with their spare time, but one of the things they should do is really revamp this authorization for the use of force. And now's the time really to do it when there's a slim Republican majority in both houses and they don't like Trump and Trump is Trump is really sowing chaos which is you know great those are opportunities to to ask questions so we should be asking that Congress should be saying look this UA thing isn't working out we've bombed you know what ten countries in the last 20 years under the same authorization how does that even constitutional and and

that's a good question and I think you would find bipartisan support for, you know, for, to really take their job seriously to keep this country at peace. And Trump ran on a peace platform. The Congress owes it to Trump. If they like Trump, the Republicans owe it to him to say, look, let's develop this peace message and show the country that this is another area that you, Mr. Trump, are having success in. Because it doesn't look like it right now. It doesn't look like he's having success in. Look, we all know what he is attempting to do with Baby Step's success

with President Putin and Ukraine. But can he really be called a man of peace? He has greenlighted and paid for continual slaughter in Gaza and now bombing these civilians. We interviewed Pepe Escobar yesterday from Sana, the capital of Yemen. And he said and pointed out to us, you know what they did? They destroyed residential neighborhoods and they killed civilians.

Yeah. Yeah. And in the aftermath, even on that leaked text, they were saying, oh, it's a great success. It was a great success. So they have revealed not just their lack of security, but also their ignorance. They don't they don't even know what they're doing. And again, I don't fault the Trump administration for not knowing what they're doing. I don't think any of the administrations in my lifetime have had a clue as to what they're doing. So I don't say, oh, Trump's any different than any other president in terms of a lack of expertise, a lack of global understanding. They don't have that. But to cheer what they did in their little signal chat

after the fact, when they could have, all they had to do was open up their computer and they would find out what they hit and they hit a residential area. I mean, you know, these, I don't know. I think if nothing else it shows we cannot have any respect for our government. Do not, you know, people, the average person, we really have to realize we are led by fools in Washington. And so let that be the starting point. And now what do we do? Now what do we do? And what can we do? You're looking at a video from Pepe Escobar yesterday of the destruction of a residential neighborhood. And when we interviewed him,

he pointed out the houses that were there and that were destroyed. Here's Senator Martin Heinrich grilling Director Ratcliffe and Director Gabbard, cut number 19, Chris. and Director Gabbard, cut number 19, Chris. So I'm curious, did this conversation at some point include information on weapons packages, targets, or timing? Not that I'm aware of.

Director Gabbard, same question. Same answer and defer to the Department of Defense on that question. Well, those are two different answers, but you're saying that was not part of the conversation. That's my knowledge. The precise operational issues were not part of this conversation.

Correct. Ha ha ha ha. All right, wait. This will either make you laugh because you'll think he's still back at Fox News or seriously aggravate you. Chris, I don't even know what number it is, but it's the Hegseth question on the tarmac in Hawaii where he blasts Jeff Goldberg. Can you share how your information about war plans against the Houthis in Yemen was shared with a journalist in the Atlantic and were those

details classified? So I you're talking about a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who's made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again to include the I don't know the hoaxes of Russia Russia Russia or the fine people on both sides hoax or suckers and losers hoax so this is the guy that pedals in garbage this is what he does I would love to comment on the Houthi campaign because of the skill and courage of our troops. I've monitored it very closely from the beginning. And you see, we've been managing four years of deferred maintenance under the Trump administration. Our troops, our sailors

were getting shot at as targets. Our ships couldn't sail through. And when they did shoot back, it was purely defensively or at shacks in Yemen. President Trump said, no more. We will reestablish deterrence. We will open freedom of navigation and we will ultimately decimate the Houthis, which is exactly what we're doing as we speak from the beginning overwhelmingly. Without a doubt, according to Pepe, who's there, it's not only not overwhelming, they are not even hitting military targets. They're hitting civilian targets.

Yeah, yeah. This head set needs to go to the Sergey Lavrov school of how to answer a question with very few words. He's you know, I wanted to give head Seth a chance, you know, we all did Karen, especially those of us that knew him. I worked with him for 10 years. I didn't think he was qualified, but it would give him a chance. This has made things worse and his response has made things worse. Made it much worse because the the DOD

It's its DOD Primarily DOD information that is that was classified. I mean, it's their strike It's their activities that they talked about on a system. They're not supposed to be using that is they're prohibited actually from using it on A system that's not foiable. I mean, this is a huge problem that needs to be corrected very quickly, very, you know, you have to take responsibility, I guess is what you would say. You would take responsibility for using the wrong system. Something has to change on that. But instead he's name calling and then he's bringing up, you know,

almost red herrings in his argument. And it doesn't make him look, it's not a good look for defense for Secretary of Defense and I'm not saying they all look good I mean Rumsfeld was infuriating with his you know just an awful you know and so many of them are not very good so Hedge that has a low bar to to to reach to be a good Secretary of Defense by our standards which are very low but but yeah that's not a good that is he's to have to either correct that. I mean, if I was his boss, if I was Trump, I don't know if it's worth talking to, or you just fire him right off the bat. He should, he should have shut up. Chris, number 17. Most of the things that

were covered in what was recorded in the Atlantic article should have been discussed in the situation room in a principles committee meeting or a full NSC chaired by the president. It looks to me like this was a typical Donald Trump decision, let's bomb the hooties, that then everybody raced to implement without talking about the implications, including, for example, Vice President Vance

apparently on this chain saying, I don't agree with this. I agreed with this first sentence, but honestly, Biden bombed the hoodies. A lot of people bombed the hoodies. You know, our policy hasn't changed. We elected Trump to see that our policy would change towards peace away from war, unrelated to the signal app and the leak, I don't see a policy changing. It looks like it's accelerating. So that's a problem. I don't know. Bolton, but he is right. He's right about the first part. You know classified material when you see it. Watch Senator Warner express utter frustration with Director Ratcliffe and

Director Gabbard about whether this is classified or not. Cut number six. My communications to be clear in a signal message group were entirely permissible and lawful and did not include classified information. We will make that determination because if it's not classified, share the text with the committee. There was no classified material that was shared in that signal. So then if there was no classified material, share it with the committee. You can't have it both ways.

These are important jobs. This is our national security. Bobbing and weaving and trying to filibuster your answer. So please answer the question. This was a rank, Director Gabbard, if this was a rank and file intelligence officer who did this kind of careless behavior, what would you do with them? Senator, I'll reiterate that there was no classified material that was shared in that signal.

And if there's no classified materials, share. And then if there's no classified materials, then answer the, you can't even answer the question whether you're on the chat. This is strangely familiar and I think my colleagues remember when you couldn't answer the question, is Edward Snowden a traitor? Well I wish he hadn't gone there. you and I have a strong view on that. He hasn't even been accused of being a traitor, but be that as it may,

she wouldn't answer if the initials TG, Tulsi Gabbard, referred to her on the chat. Yeah. Look, she, the, it should have been done in a principles meeting or on Intel link a secure system. But if and I've been to these principles meetings before on different issues, and generally, you know, you're

pre screened to get in, obviously, no, no journalists are invited. And you have the right clearance. And everything that you talk about and all of the attendees those who attended that meeting is all part of the record and that record is all classified so they basically conducted a meeting in the signal group chat okay fine you can do that you can conduct a meeting you just can't do a government dod meeting that's you, your war planning or your attack planning to the Houthis. You can't do that because by getting together electronically, you have established a principles meeting and the contents of that meeting are secured at the time that they're doing, that

they're talking, and the notes to that meeting are classified. So they're kind of playing a game because they think they don't know what Trump wants to do yet, I guess. They don't know if he's going to admit there was a problem and fire some people or try to try to play this thing out like oh it's okay what we did. No it's not it's not okay and they shouldn't be behaving like that but you know these these characters that Trump has you know made his advisors and and some are good and some are not as good. But this is the political game.

This is the same thing. He hates the Biden administration. We all do. Okay, but he has to distinguish himself from the Biden administration. I'm not seeing anything distinguishes him in this particular instance at all. They are denying, denying, denying. This is FBI Comer all over again. This is last summer's interview wither, you know, all over again. This is the,

this is last summer's interview with the head of the Secret Service, you know, remember how she wouldn't answer any questions? Same thing, same exact thing. Here's that young senator from Georgia with whose questions you were impressed earlier, Senator John Ossoff grilling Director Ratcliffe. Cut number four. Director Ratcliffe, you were a member of the HUTI PC small group signal chain, correct? I was. Yeah, and so were the vice president,

the secretaries of state and defense, the national security advisor, and Ms. Gabbard, correct? I believe so. I don't have a list of who was invited to be on. And so was national political reporter Jeffrey Goldberg, correct? I don't have a list of who was invited to be on. And so was national political reporter Jeffrey Goldberg, correct? I don't know that. Yes you do.

Okay, well he was a member of the signal chain. And the discussion included the vice president's private opinion on the wisdom of proposed U.S. strikes in Yemen, correct? I don't recall. Vance, quote, I think we are making a mistake. I am not sure the President is aware of how inconsistent this is with his message

on Europe right now. There was a strong argument for delaying this a month. You don't recall? I don't, as you, as you. You don't recall seeing that? Read that, I don't. It included the private opinions of the Secretary of Defense on the timing of strikes in Yemen, correct? You don't recall seeing that? Read that, I don't. It included the private opinions of the Secretary of Defense on the timing of strikes in Yemen, correct?

I don't recall. Director Radcliffe, surely you prepared for this hearing today. You were part of a group of principals, senior echelons of the US government, in now a widely publicized breach of sensitive information. You don't recall whether the vice president opined on the wisdom of the strikes.

That's your testimony today under oath. In that setting, I don't recall. Wait, did he come off terribly? I mean, this to me, just trying to be neutral wearing my old traditional hat is very close to perjury. Very close to perjury. Unless he's gonna make the claim that his phone with the Signal app and the group chat was going on and he was actually doing something else on his computer

at the time not paying attention, which is something you know could happen. That's conceivable. Unlikely, but you know he's you know again they're protecting the president. They're protecting each other and at the end they're protecting themselves. And I'm protecting each other. And at the end, they're protecting themselves. And I'm waiting for the, I hate to use the word man, but I'm waiting for the standup guy or gal to stand up and take responsibility. Right, if Mike Walsh intended to invite some senior intelligence official,

but mistakenly gave whoever ran the chat, Jeffrey Goldberg's number. He should stand up and say it. It was an honest mistake. I'll do what the president wants me to do. This would all end if Waltz, I guess it was Waltz that added him to the chat. Waltz could stand up and say, you know, we shouldn't have used it, and you know what, I made a mistake. I offered my resignation to the president this morning as soon as we realized it. The end of it. I mean, not quite. I wouldn't use Signal anymore. That would be an improvement. But it would be the

end of this drama. But meanwhile, it's like we're rolling out, you know, these long extended soliques by Hedge Seth, which make Hedge Seth himself look bad. All of that, of course, is making the president look bad. So a little bit of common sense would go a long way here. Here's Senator Heinrich and John Ratcliffe again. See if Ratcliffe defers responsibility, Karen. Cut number 20. Did you just determine it was not classified or was there any declassification after the

fact? In this case, what the national security advisor did was to request through a signal message that there be coordination. So you mentioned the name of a CIA active officer, correct? So- I had mentioned the name. You didn't mention the name. Existence of that.

And in the article, the implication was that somehow that was improper. Clearly it reflects that the National Security Advisor intended this to be, as it should have been, a mechanism for coordinating between senior level officials, but not a substitute for using high side or classified communications for anything that would be classified. And I think that that is exactly what did happen. The National Security Advisor to whom he refers brings us back to where we started.

Mike Waltz, yeah, by the way is in Greenland today with Mrs Vance. Right, you can't make this up. I'm going to guess that that trip was planned before this stuff came out yesterday. Yeah, that's some crazy stuff. Yeah, this has been handled badly. It was done wrong. It's wrong. It is. Imagine in that question that the Georgia senator asked about,

or maybe it was Warner, about the enemies of our country, or I say the enemies, but foreign intel, intel that's aimed at collecting US intelligence. This is a meeting of top decision-makers on a imminent act of war or an imminent military action that's being taken in secret. And it reveals not just what they're doing in real, you know, in a certain timely manner that makes it important, you know, you could counter it as they said, but it also indicates relationships habits processes dissent obviously Vance with with a kind of a you know a minor dissent that was very worthwhile

But all of that information is is gold to foreign intelligence operatives You know and it I well and I assume reporters like like reporters like Jeffrey Goldberg, but I don't understand why they can't take responsibility for something so simple, and they're gonna blow it up into something far bigger than it needs to be. It needs to be a lesson learned, it needs to be corrective action should be applied,

and people should be fired. I have no issue with, you know, because that question about would you fire an intelligence officer who did that. Yeah, yeah you would. Well the answer to that should have been yes. Tell me if you think director Radcliffe should be fired after this grilling by Senator, again Senator Ossoff, again, Senator Ossoff, cut number two. And they were discussing the timing of sending US air crews into enemy airspace where they faced an air defense threat, correct?

I'm gonna, Senator, defer to the other principles that you're referring to about what the meaning and the context of what they were on. They're talking about the timing of U.S. air strikes, correct? Yes. Yes, and therefore the timing of sending U.S. air crews into hostile airspace, correct? Yes. And therefore the time period during which enemy air defenses could target US air crews flying in enemy airspace, correct?

I don't know that. You do know that. Let me ask this question, General Hawk. You lead America's signals intelligence collection. Would the private deliberation of foreign senior officials about the wisdom and timing of potential military action be a collection priority for you and the U.S. intelligence community? Senator, it's our job to do indications and warning for both the plans and intentions

of... That's my fault. We played that already. What was funny the second time too. And I'm not trying to drive you nor am I trying to embarrass the Air Force. Yeah, no, no, it's um, it's interesting and it's almost this problem is so this drama is persisting and you know my gut reaction and I would think a lot of people's in the government's gut reaction would be to fire the people that are embarrassing

the administration and being incompetent. There is a possibility, okay, Jeff Goldberg, right? How in the heck did he get on this? We need to get to the bottom of how he and not someone else, why him? But I'll tell you, if you wanted to get some people fired from the Trump team, then this would be a good way to do it and have your Democrat allies, senators, and congressmen look good. Because Warner, I'm gonna tell you,

Warner's dumb as a brick. He's my senator and he's not an achiever, okay? He's not somebody that we write home about. These questions are exceptionally good, but we rarely see Congress and senators ask really good questions. So you always wonder, were they prepared? Did they get a little hint as to the kind of questions to ask once this thing unfolded? And again, what Trump does remains to be seen. Maybe somebody wants to get some people... Do you expect the FBI to investigate this? I don't know. They should. Well, obviously, they should. The DOD should look into it. Anybody with

interest here... I think you can't use signal to have pseudo principles meetings. You can't do that. That is wrong and that needs to be dealt with. I think, yeah, so whoever investigates that, FBI probably, but there's other places you can get the information. But really, what if you wanted to get Tulsi Gabbard fired? And maybe you weren't so happy with Ratcliffe. Because I know some people that aren't too happy with Tulsi and Ratcliffe.

So maybe this is the way you get him out there. And why is Walls not sitting there in front of Congress? You know, why? Oh, cause he's in Greenland looking at real estate. Karen, we have- It's so funny. Well, anyway, that's wonderful stuff. I love it.

Thank you. Thank you for your time. It's not our usual Q and A, but I love all of your responses and your insight. Thank you so much. Look forward to seeing you next week, my dear friend. Sure enough, Judge, thank you.

Thank you. Crazy stuff. Tomorrow at noon, the world according to George Galloway right here on Judging Freedom. At one o'clock, Professor Glenn Deason, at two o'clock, Aaron Mate, at three o'clock, Phil Giraldi. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. You