“The deflection of responsibility suggests also to us they’re not going to do all this work. There’s an arrogance here, mixed in with the incompetence, which is dangerous.”
Washington, D.C. — Last night, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) joined MSNBC’s The Last Word hosted by Jen Psaki to warn of the fallout from the mishandling of sensitive national security matters.
View the full interview here.
Key Excerpts:
On the Trump administration displaying chaos by taking no accountability:
[…] What was so notable to me also about this is just the complete deflection of responsibility – from the very top down. You’ve got Donald Trump saying, “Oh, it wasn’t me. I don’t know anything about this. Why should I know anything about this? I’m only the commander in chief. Why are you bringing Hegseth into this?” And Hegseth is saying, “I didn’t – there were no war plans.” And you’ve got Tulsi Gabbard saying, “Was I on this text chat?” And then later, “I have no idea where I was during these conversations. I could have been in any country.” You’ve got Ratcliffe, the head of the CIA, saying, “I didn’t transmit classified information. No, somebody else did. I’m only the CIA director, what responsibility do I have over classified information?” So, it’s what happens when you put people who are completely unqualified, disqualified in these positions – you’re going to get colossal eff ups like this one.
On the seriousness of using a commercial app for sensitive national security matters:
[…] This is not the first time that they’ve been using a commercial app for completely inappropriate discussions. It just can’t be. There is an acceptance by everybody on that chat of the normalcy of what they’re doing. And I can’t imagine that this was, because it was the first time that they’re invited to this Houthi private chat. So, this has been done before. And to me, more important than the records keeping issue – the legality of that, which is important – is what else may have been compromised now? Because our adversaries, particularly more sophisticated ones like China and Russia and others, they know who has what device. They know where those devices are. If those devices were ever left unattended – and Witkoff says, “I didn’t have it with me,” so it was left somewhere. If they get access to that device, they now have access to that chat. And so, what else has been compromised?
And frankly, anything they discussed on these devices now has to be presumed to have been compromised. So not only should the Congress find out, but the intelligence community is going to have a need to know if they’re doing their jobs, what else were they talking about? We have to assume it’s compromised. We have to assume that these sources may have been burned. We have to take measures to protect any human sources now. This is the kind of now back work that will be done in the [intelligence community] – if they’re doing it at all. But you know the deflection of responsibility suggests also to us, they’re not going to do all this work. There’s an arrogance here, mixed in with the incompetence, which is dangerous.
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