Audio: Re: Signal Debacle, Fmr. Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA05) Says “they broke so many protocols in this one incident…how many other screw-ups have they done or they’re going to do?”

Great job by former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA05) on Bloomberg’s “Balance of Power” podcast this afternoon. See below for audio, and a partial transcript (hlghlights in bold).

• “Here’s the thing: I was an Air Force mission planner and when I said I actually deployed on multiple mission ops, was trained on F-15s and F-16s, probably mission planned more strikes than everybody on that panel has seen or done in their lifetimes. And for anybody to say that this was a hoax number one it’s impossible with Signal, nobody can sneak onto there. It’s obvious that Mike Waltz already had Jeff Goldberg in his contacts and probably was talking to him previously…he probably was leaking or talking to Jeff Goldberg on some other thing, which is why he’s so violently aggressive in pushing these conspiracy theories. But also when you look at what happened on that Signal chat, when you’re looking at time over targets, when you’re looking at specific type of airframes, when you’re looking at a specific mention of the target, all that is at the minimum secret or collateral level. It’s ludicrous to say that they weren’t actually talking classified on those threads, especially when it was that far out from the strike. If you can imagine somebody else being added that maybe wasn’t as ethical as Jeff Goldberg, what our enemies could actually do, because if you know the air strike or the platforms you can infer the weapons platforms that they’re actually carrying. So I find it laughable – and anybody who’s been in ops, real ops like I have in the United States Air Force or on the ground or Marine Corps pilots, Navy pilots, Army pilots – they understand the time over targets, specific payloads or specific aircraft and the target itself would be classified.”
• “I find it interesting that they say it’s no problem to have a leak from the SecDef at the highest levels; it was only by the good fortune that they had an ethical US citizen that they had included on these talks. To somehow say just because we screwed up so badly that we could put troops in harm’s way and because it didn’t that means it’s all hunky dory. It’s so ludicrous from an intelligence background but also from a military background but just common sense. Because when you look at what these individuals have pledged to do and how they’ve supposedly been trained and gotten all the security briefings, they broke so many protocols in this one incident you wonder how many protocols they broken in the past. You know there’s something in the military where we say past performance is indicative of future performance, how many other screw-ups have they done or they’re going to do? When you have people who have no business being in positions of power who don’t have the expertise, the acumen, or the judgment – most of them conspiracy theorists or believers that the election was stolen – when you have people with that bad a judgment that are actually supposed to be holding security clearances, you don’t those want those individuals actually affecting operations based on their own bad decisions. And I think that’s what we have right now is we have fantasy-based policy coming from the administration. But we have individuals that have been confirmed by the Senate as you guys alluded to earlier that really shouldn’t be there. And I think when you have people who don’t have the experience level or the acumen or the ability to plan correctly or can’t follow directions, who don’t know security, all of that together could be disaster for the United States. And I think what it indicates is that they actually could be the reason that the United States has a debacle in the future based on their performance today. And literally heads should roll.”
• “No [an investigation by Congress is] not going to happen, no…My guess is there’s going to be an executive order allowing Signal tomorrow, you know, to be used for classified operations. Or there’s going to be some kind of preemptive pardon, you know, for Signal users in the DoD. I mean it’s so ludicrous and I think it’s what’s scaring our allies right now. And I think what people are concentrating on, the fact that Signal they invited somebody they were discussing classified information right on a comm’s channel that wasn’t authorized, but it’s also how do our allies think about how they were being spoken about? There’s so many cascading effects here…it’s hard for people that you know have IQ above moron and common sense to grasp how this  administration could defend this in any way. But we’ve seen this in the past, I mean we’ve gone from where there’s not going to be an investigation on this to reparations for J6 insurrectionists. So you know, let’s not think that this administration is going to all of a sudden change their spots and have any kind of real adult in the room type of decision-making when it comes to our troops in the field. And I think that’s what it goes back to is me being a military member, I just want to make sure that our troops in the field, the people flying those missions, our forward air controllers, those on the ground, all those are protected. And right now with this administration, what we saw with this debacle and releasing this information, I don’t know if anybody in the military can feel 100% that this administration has the best interest of the military or our national defense in mind.”
• “The first thing that’s lost it really is our is our ability to maneuver and massage events that are happening in a foreign affairs environment. And I think that’s what scares the hell out of me is that we don’t have this ability to dictate or to look at our best interests or to be helpful…we’ve looked at ourselves as sort of the moral dogooders of people that could come in and give some of these security assurances to our allies. If our allies don’t believe that, what happens next? And I think what they’re seeing too is there’s no truth in fact baseline to any of the decision-making, it seems to be knee-jerk and based on fantasy, especially when you’re looking at Ukraine…how does all this actually affect our European allies but how does this also affect Ukraine?…JD Vance already made it clear when he was there before right that they don’t think Ukraine could be a NATO…it’s just ludicrous to give up all of that sort of negotiating clout. So I think what you have is that the EU needs to look at going their own way. And I think you’re seeing some of those positions when you’re looking at Poland saying ‘Hey you know what maybe we need to have our own nuclear program.’ Or you’re looking at South Korea saying ‘Hey maybe we need our own nuclear program now.’ All the security assurances, nuclear assurances, all of the weapons, all of our contractors, all of those decades and decades of building trust is broken immediately, and how do we get that trust back? So there’s multiple cascading effects for the decision-making and the hyperbole that’s coming out of the administration.”
• “Back even the middle of the 2000s we had a secure chat called Jabber, you have secure chat all over the place…you have encrypted phones…Are there things in the military that are absolutely bureaucratic and ridiculous? Yes, I was there, gosh I know…better than most…But don’t break the law or be stupid because you think something else needs to be used. Try to do better. And I think that’s what it comes down to with military ethics and integrity, use what you have and if you got to change something in the future, then work towards it then.”