Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump in World of Hell as Espionage Act Re-Surfaces

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

The Trump Administration used a third party app that could be hacked by our enemies, to communicate about recent secret war plans this month against the Houthis and Iran before the bombing began, and added by accident the Editor and Chief of the Atlantic magazine to the chain, in likely violation of the Espionage Act. Michael Popok reports. For 50% off your first order plus free shipping forever, head to https://FilterEasy.com/LEGALAF and use code LEGALAF. Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Donald Trump was prosecuted for that in the Mar-a-Lago case and now we've got new reporting that they actually set up a third-party app. They set up a communication channel, a text message chain on Signal with the highest level apex officers on there including the head of the national intelligence community, the head of the CIA, the head of the national intelligence community, the head of the CIA, the head of the Department of Defense, the vice president of the United States, the secretary of state, all on a text chain on Signal, except one of the people, Mike Walz, who's the national security advisor, spending some time in Greenland the last day or so, he added a reporter to the

Signal chain. This is why you don't set up a signal chain to communicate your war plans against another group of people. So he added Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic magazine, who sat there thinking, is this a fake? Am I being punked? Is this a real signal chat about the who they're attacking, when they're attacking, how they're attacking? I thought Pete Hegseth just said that transgender soldiers can't be trusted because they're dishonest and they undermine lethality.

How about adding a reporter to your signal chat? How about using signal, which can be corrupted and intercepted by our foreign adversaries. I'm Michael Popak, you're on the Midas Touch Network and Legal AF, let's get into it. So Jeffrey Goldberg just reported in the Atlantic that he was accidentally added to a signal chat that involved Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth, John Ratliff, Marco Rubio, Stephen Miller,

Suzy Wiles, you name it, JD Vance were all in there and they're all talking about target packages and the green light from Trump and going after the hootis. JD Vance, who's in the news as of late about that maybe deep fake audio that was released with him attacking Elon Musk. JD Vance, the real JD Vance apparently, tapping away on his signal app and his cell phone in an unsecured way. He says, I don't know why we're even doing this. I oppose

attacking the Houthis. Why? Because we're bailing out Europe again and they're freeloaders. 40% of their commercial traffic goes through those channels like the Suez Canal area. Only 3% of ours. How are we going to explain it? And then Pete Hegseth jumps in. I'm going to put some of these up on the screen. Pete Hegseth jumps in with, well, we know, but the president, I hear you, they're freeloaders, but we could just blame, like we always do, Joe Biden and Iranian funding, because this Houthis who are Iranian-backed are funded by Iranian money. This is now their go-to, they're knee-jerk. We can't figure out messaging to the American people, blame Joe Biden. How many, there it is, in black and white.

That's JD Vance and Hegseth admitting to it. The journalist, you may be wondering, was sort of shocked that he was added. He was up there on the screen as JG the whole time. Nobody questioned who's JG. He thought he was being punked in the beginning. Then it turned out it was real because everything that this group said was gonna happen

within two hours happened. So he reached out to the White House and said, hey, is this a fake signal? Did you know somebody was masquerading as all these key people in national intelligence and national security? And the White House had to concede that it was a real signal chat about the war plan.

And the best they could come up with is, it shows the thoughtfulness that went into the war plan. No, it shows a possible violation of the Espionage Act and the stupidity of using a third party app, the app that can be infiltrated by our enemies and tapped by our enemies. But to the Trump administration, sure, signal WhatsApp. You know, why don't they just use WeChat out of China? Cut out the middle man, it's a lot easier.

Now some of the people in the administration or outside the administration, they would say, well, we use Signal for non-classified. Now what's gonna happen right now? Now the entire hacking world, including those run by state-sponsored terrorism, now know we use Signal. And now they're just gonna go after all of them

and try to break in. They better like change their passwords. I mean, I'm not the IT department, but I think that at a minimum should be happening. Don't you? So here's the let me just read to you from some of the chain that was just even the reporter not even a reporter the the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic. Here's what he has to say. Here's the chain that he reproduces. The last time I went to my local mom-and and pop hardware store, I walked out with everything I needed. Except the right sized air filter. Why are they so impossible to find? This podcast is sponsored by FilterEasy. It's 2025.

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Once again, that's filtereasy.com backslash LegalAF for 50% off your first order plus free shipping forever. And make sure you use my promo code, LegalAF, so they know I sent you. JD Vance, which remember, they have now already confirmed that this is a true signal chain. Okay, so this is not deep fake, this is real. JD Vance, at Pete Hegseth.

So Pete, if you think we should go do it's it Let's go. I just hate bailing at Europe out again He had already commented earlier that he didn't think that Trump had fully thought this through about how this is Inconsistent with his attacks on Europe the fact that half of the commercial traffic through the Suez where the Houthis are Operating is really European traffic. So that's why he says, I hate bailing out Europe again. Let's make sure our messaging is tight here. This is JD Vance to Hegseth and the group.

If there are things we can do upfront to minimize risk to Saudi oil facilities, we should do it. Hegseth says, VP, I fully share your loathing of European freeloading. It's pathetic. But Mike, that's Mike Waltz, the national security advisor who's sitting in Greenland right now in order to royal up the waters there. We are the only ones on the planet on our side of the ledger who can do this. Nobody else even close. Question is timing. I feel like now is as good a time at any given POTUS's direction to reopen shipping lanes.

I think we should, but POTUS still retains 24 hours of decision space. Stephen Miller jumps in, because he's involved with everything, he's the guy behind the guy. He says, as I heard it, the president was clear. Green light, but we soon make clear to Egypt and Europe what we expect in return. We also need to figure out how to enforce such a requirement. E.g., if Europe doesn't renumerate, then what? If the US successfully

restores freedom of navigation at great costs. There needs to be some further economic gain and extracted in return. That's Stephen Miller. After they did the bombing in which 53 people were killed, there was a whole bunch of emojis like they were in fourth grade. Excellent, a good start, a lot of fist bumping American flags and fire, good job Pete, powerful start and all of that. Waltz goes on ABCs this week, compares the strikes as expected from the signal chain, compares the strikes to the weakness of the Biden administration. See right on cue, blame Biden, which is what Waltz goes on ABCs this week with.

So you can't trust any of these people because they're all concocting their stories behind the scenes. Earlier today, Jeffrey Goldberg, who received this signal, emailed Waltz and sent him a message on his signal account. He also wrote to Pete Hegseth, John Ratcliffe, Tulsi Gabbard and other officials and had certain questions like is the Hootie PC small group a genuine signal threat? Did you know that I was included on it? Was I on the off chance included on purpose? If not, who did they think I was? Did anybody realize I was then added

or when I removed myself from the group? Brian Hughes, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, responded two hours later, confirming the veracity of the signal group this way. This appears to be, they're big on this, this appears to be, this appears to be an authentic message chain.

And we are reviewing how inadvertent number was added to the chain. The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. No, it's an example of how they have violated all rules of confidentiality and top secret cover for war plans. That's the best that you can come up with. of confidentiality and top secret cover for war plans.

That's the best that you can come up with. So as Jeffrey Goldberg said, there's never been a breach like this in history, but what do we expect? Donald Trump took with him hundreds and hundreds of top secret classified compartmented documents that cannot be reviewed, and he did not declassify on his way to Mar-a-Lago.

He doesn't believe that anything is top secret or classified. He's fine with our adversaries and our enemies getting on their hands and hacking signal, obviously. He was okay with this group being set up. hands and hacking signal, obviously. He was okay with this group being set up. He's a sloppy, sloppy man that's gonna get the United States into a world of hurt economically and domestically and from a foreign policy standpoint.

And you can see he picked people who share his views. I'm sorry, I worked in some high end organizations. You know, we would never think to use Signal. To talk, in fact, I worked in an organization that they used code words for transactions. Like, you know, the bird has flown and the this is that and the canary is in the coal mine you know all sorts of I had to keep track on a piece of paper it was so complicated

all right so so at the end of the day um you'd think that the government at the highest levels would uh would do something better than using signal to communicate war plans and adding a journalist to it. I'm going to continue to follow this developing story here on The Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF. I'm Michael Popak. In collaboration with The Midas Touch Network, we just launched the Legal AF YouTube channel. Help us build this pro-democracy channel where I'll be curating the top stories, the intersection of law and politics. Go to YouTube now and free subscribe at Legal AF MTN. That's at Legal AF MTN.