The NYT "Daily" podcast interviewer prompts Jeffrey Goldberg, in this morning's new episode,
"Inside the Group Chat Planning to Bomb Yemen" (Podscribe).
Goldberg responds: "Yeah. I mean, you know, and, and, and also it's weird that substantive government conversations we taking place over Signal, because Signal is not by the US government standards secure in part because obviously it's open — technically open — to anyone, including yours, truly. And I, I know that previous administrations have used different messaging services, but not for, not for substance. Right? I mean, I think in the Biden administration, it's a, it's a good example. They used Signal. But my impression is based on, on some reporting, my impression is that they use Signal to do things like setting up lunch appointments or, Hey, I've just left Saudi Arabia. I'll call you from a skiff when I get to whatever."
Only once the bombings in Yemen occurred did Goldberg — as he tells it — realize "this is almost certainly a real Signal group and not some sort of deceptive disinformation campaign." He's being careful, it seems, to protect
himself. Did he do something wrong by failing
immediately to drop out of the chat? He would like the timeline for judging his behavior to begin at the point when he knew "almost certainly" that the conversation was what it appeared to be:
And so then I had to begin to make a serious decision...
Key word: then. And: begin.
... consulting with colleagues that ultimately led me to remove myself from the Signal group later that day....
What was said in these conversations?
How did they analyze the legal problems and journalism ethics? What we know is that Goldberg signed out of the Signal group.
... knowing that the group administrator and Signal and the members, I believe, of a group as well, are notified that you have left the group.
That is, to withdraw he would have to expose himself as the eavesdropper he chose to be. Presumably, that problem was bandied about in those consultations with colleagues. During the time he was talking to colleagues, he was still in the group and he knew it wasn't a hoax. Now, to get out, he'd have to target himself. But, bottom line, he got out.
I assumed at that point that Mike Waltz was gonna call and say, Hey, who, who is this? Or call and say, why'd you leave the group? And, and, and then I would say, you know, director Waltz or whatever, do you know, do you even know who this is? But nobody look the, I mean, here's the, the, the truth of it is nobody noticed when I was added and nobody noticed when I was left.
The truth is, you don't know what other people notice when they say nothing.
The "Daily" interviewer invites Goldberg to reveal why he left the group. He says:
You know, I, I think people can make their own deductions here, but I can't get into for various reasons. The conversations I subsequently had with colleagues and others about my decision making, all I will say is that I, I removed myself from the group understanding the consequences of that....
He doesn't want to talk about it. And who knows the meaning of things not said?
ADDED, after listening to more of the podcast. The interviewer comes back to the material I've highlighted. She says:
I respect the fact that you can't go into the details, but I do want to ask you whether part of the reason why you left was that you were concerned you could get in trouble for it. Like were you worried at all that you had stayed in that chat too long? And, and not just you, but the people that you're talking to at the Atlantic that presumably you're getting advice from?
Goldberg's answer shows that he needs to worry that he could be accused of a crime. He says:
I'm going to, your Honor, I'm gonna respectfully decline to answer that question on the grounds that I can't answer the question. I take the nation's laws very seriously, but I am not in a position to discuss decision making related to the type of material that I was seeing.
Then, Goldberg brings up something that shocks me into seeing why Trump hates Goldberg: "Four years ago, five years ago, I reported that Donald Trump referred to the World War I and World War II War dead as suckers and losers."
And then I had to wonder whether Goldberg was put on that Signal chat deliberately to entrap him into committing what would be characterized as a crime, and that's what I'm guessing he talked about with his colleagues that led him to withdraw from the chat.
Of course, on the Trump side, they congealed very quickly around the story that it was a stupid mistake, but no harm, no foul. But isn't that what they would do if it were deliberate entrapment?
Another suspicion I developed listening to this podcast is that Goldberg is not the first journalist to be added to a chat like this and fed information, but other journalists have just written stories about the substance of what they heard. Look at that line: "Bob Woodward has spent an entire career trying to infiltrate groups like this." Well, maybe Bob Woodward is in groups like that. He just doesn't write articles about what happened to him. And maybe Goldberg knows that, but he chose to make the story about himself because he knows he's high on Trump's enemies list, and he and his colleagues/lawyers gamed it out and decided he needed to protect himself from criminal prosecution.
Why would Goldberg, of all journalists, be included in that chat?
Occam's razor says entrapment.
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