‘Almost Farcical!’ The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser Trashes Trump Officials’ Senate Hearing Testimony About Chat Leak

The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser went off on the “almost farcical” explanations provided by White House officials at a Tuesday congressional hearing where the focus was how a journalist got looped into a text chain where defense officials were discussing war plans.

The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg reported that he was accidentally looped into a chat on Signal where officials were discussing plans of attack against the Houthis in Yemen. The White House continues to deny classified information was part of this exchange.

Just minutes after Tuesday’s hearing with CIA Director John Ratcliffe and National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, Glasser called out the officials for claiming classified information, arguing the information already available would suggest it is classified as it relates war “planning” and “real time debates” on policy.

Glasser argued:

This is the thing about, you know, the political techniques of Donald Trump and his supporters over time versus our own reality, our own eyes. So once again, we’re being asked to — you know, this is an almost farcical defense, it’s frankly, I would call it a legalistic defense, except it’s not a legalistic defense. The real legalistic defense is you’re under oath so say I don’t recall. Let’s pull back here. Is this an extraordinary breach of national security, however you define the terminology of the material used? Yes. If it was intelligence we obtained on another power — I think one of the senators made this point — about real time debates and planning for war plans, of course, you would consider this highly sensitive information, number one.

The New Yorker staff writer also blasted Signal as a “compromised” platform.

“In fact, NPR has reported today that the Pentagon had warned about the use of Signal and its potential vulnerability to foreign penetration right before this conversation occurred,” she said.

Glasser added that the controversy only looks worse for Trump in light of reports that Steve Witkoff, the special envoy to the Middle East, was in the text chain and was in Moscow at the time. Ratcliffe said during Tuesday’s hearing that he was unaware of this.

“If anything, I would say the scandal looks worse for the Trump White House on the second day even than it did initially. Why? Well, you have the information emerging that one of the participants, Steve Witkoff, was actually in Moscow at the time that this conversation was occurring. That is remarkable,” Glasser said.

The reporter argued the hearing showed just how partisan everything has become under Trump with even “basic matters of national security” providing a dividing line between those who support the current administration and those who do not. Glasser predicted a special prosecutor would be assigned to the matter in the “old days” of Washington, D.C.

She said:

The idea that it wasn’t classified again strains credulity, and not in a partisan way, y the way. In the old days, this is not a matter for Democrats and Republicans. If we were living in any moment except for this moment, a special prosecutor would be appointed to look into whether a breach of classified information and our national security [happened]. That’s how it would have worked, except in this moment where we’ve turned everything, including basic matters of national security, into partisan issues.

Watch above via CNN.