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Passwords, Contact Info for Top Trump NatSec Officials ‘Publicly’ Available: Report

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Highly sensitive information belonging to several top national security officials from the Trump administration—including passwords and cell phone numbers linked to their Signal accounts—is publicly available online. The encrypted messaging app was used in a major breach of classified national security information earlier this month, according to a leading German news outlet, DER SPIEGEL, which concluded that it is “conceivable that foreign agents were privy to the Signal chat group” discussions.

“DER SPIEGEL reporters were able to find mobile phone numbers, email addresses and even some passwords belonging to the top officials,” the news site reported Wednesday. The top officials include National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth—all of whom were part of the Signal chat in which a military attack was mapped out and carried out.

The sensitive information has been used by the three top officials in various ways, and reportedly remains in use.

READ MORE: ‘Liar’ Hegseth Faces ‘Immediate’ Resignation Demand From Growing List of Democrats

Some are “linked to profiles on social media platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn. They were used to create Dropbox accounts and profiles in apps that track running data. There are also WhatsApp profiles for the respective phone numbers and even Signal accounts in some cases.”

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s data was “particularly easy for DER SPIEGEL reporters to discover,” including his cell phone number and email address.”

The reporters “turned to a commercial provider of contact information that is primarily used by companies for sales, marketing and recruitment,” and then they “sent the provider a link to Hegseth’s LinkedIn profile and received a Gmail address and a mobile phone number in return, in addition to other information.”

“A search of leaked user data revealed that the email address and, in some cases, even the password associated with it, could be found in over 20 publicly accessible leaks. Using publicly available information, it was possible to verify that the email address was used just a few days ago.”

READ MORE: ‘Quite a Bit of Perjury’: Texts Shatter Trump Admin’s ‘Bungled Coverup’ of Classified Leak

The DER SPIEGEL investigation, it said, also “revealed an additional grave, previously unknown security breach at the highest levels in Washington. Hostile intelligence services could use this publicly available data to hack the communications of those affected by installing spyware on their devices.”

But National Security Advisor Mike Waltz’s data was also easily accessed, including “several passwords for Waltz’s email address in leaked databases. The information also led to Waltz’s profiles for Microsoft Teams, LinkedIn, WhatsApp and Signal.”

“DER SPIEGEL reporting has demonstrated, though, that privately used and publicly accessible telephone numbers belonging to [Gabbard] and Waltz are, in fact, linked to Signal accounts,” the German news outlet states. “It is thus conceivable that foreign agents were privy to the Signal chat group in which Gabbard, Waltz and Hegseth discussed a military strike.”

That essentially voids the arguments made by the Trump administration, Republican lawmakers, and right-wing news outlets which have said that the military strikes were successful, and no Americans were harmed so the breach of national security is, as President Trump claimed, a mere “glitch.”

READ MORE: ‘Putin Is Giddy’: NSA Knew Signal Was Vulnerable to Russian Hackers Before Security Breach

 

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‘Insulting’: Fox News Panel Implodes as Host Clashes With Liberal Guest Over Voter ID

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A Fox News segment exploring voter identification requirements imploded on Monday.

As the hosts and a guest talked over each other, Martha MacCallum said it was “insulting” to women and minorities to say they can’t obtain an ID.

“There are already laws on the books, but let’s also look at what has also been determined,” urged liberal radio host and commentator Leslie Marshall.

“In 24 years, there have been 77 illegals who have registered to vote, how many of those 77 have voted? One,” she said.

“So when we look at — if you’re talking about voter fraud — here’s the other thing. If, in fact, we do have voter ID, but not packaged this —” she said.

READ MORE: Judge Cites Orwell in Scathing Rebuke of Trump Administration

MacCallum interrupted her to discuss the “integrity of elections,” despite Marshall having just said that only one undocumented immigrant had voted.

The Republicans’ SAVE Act, a Trump-supported bill that critics warn could make it difficult for millions of Americans to vote, “takes power from the states and puts the federal government in play with the elections,” Marshall said. “One. Two, if you want to have an ID, make it free, make it easily accessible. Especially to veterans, the homeless, the elderly…”

“It is insulting to people,” MacCallum said. “It’s insulting to women. They’re saying women aren’t capable of getting an ID. They’re saying this man, a Black man who was, you know, just referenced said it is insulting to him to suggest that he can’t get a legitimate ID.”

The segment unraveled as the discussion descended into crosstalk.

Marshall suggested that women who marry and have a different name than on passports and birth certificates may not be able to vote.

READ MORE: Trump Mocked for ‘Unhinged Tantrum’ as ‘Trump Station’ Story Shifts Again

 

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Judge Cites Orwell in Scathing Rebuke of Trump Administration

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A U.S. District judge invoked anti-totalitarian author George Orwell to deliver a sharp rebuke of the Trump administration’s removal of items honoring the history of slavery in the United States from a Philadelphia exhibit.

“As if the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984 now existed, with its motto ‘Ignorance is Strength,’ this Court is now asked to determine whether the federal government has the power it claims to dissemble and disassemble historical truths when it has some domain over historical facts. It does not,” declared U.S. District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe.

The lawsuit by the City of Philadelphia against U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum concerned the removal of slavery exhibits at The President’s House, which is part of Independence National Historical Park.

Judge Rufe wrote that, “in its argument, the government claims it alone has the power to erase, alter, remove and hide historical accounts on taxpayer and local government-funded monuments within its control. Its claims in this regard echo Big Brother’s domain in Orwell’s 1984.”

READ MORE: Trump Mocked for ‘Unhinged Tantrum’ as ‘Trump Station’ Story Shifts Again

She also quoted from the iconic novel. A portion of that quote reads:

“The largest section of the [government’s] Records Department . . . consisted simply of persons whose duty it was to track down and collect all copies of books, newspapers, and other documents which had been superseded and were due for destruction. A number of the Times [a newspaper] which might, because of changes in political alignment, or mistaken prophesies uttered by Big Brother, have been rewritten a dozen times still stood on the files bearing its original date, and no other copy existed to contradict it.”

Rufe wrote that the U.S. government “asserts truth is no longer self-evident, but rather the property of the elected chief magistrate and his appointees and delegees, at his whim to be scraped clean, hidden, or overwritten. And why? Solely because, as Defendants state, it has the power.”

She also blasted the government’s actions, which “impede the separation of powers instituted by the Constitution.”

“Defendants acted in excess of their authority as agencies authorized by Congress within the executive branch,” she added.

In her 40-page memorandum, posted by Politico’s Kyle Cheney, Judge Rufe found that removal of historical panels and other items would constitute irreparable harm, and ordered that “Defendants reinstall all panels, displays, and video exhibits that were previously in place..”

READ MORE: ‘This Is Authoritarianism’: Experts Warn on US Midterm Elections

 

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Trump Mocked for ‘Unhinged Tantrum’ as ‘Trump Station’ Story Shifts Again

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President Donald Trump’s latest rant contradicts the White House’s version of events surrounding his continued focus on renaming New York’s Penn Station “Trump Station” — as the president also continues to appear to tie funding for the already-approved New York-New Jersey Gateway Tunnel project to a potential name change.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt last week specifically stated that President Trump “floated” renaming Penn Station (and Washington-Dulles Airport) with Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, as TIME reported.

Trump had claimed that it was Leader Schumer who made the suggestion.

Now, Trump is claiming that multiple politicians suggested the name change, as did various union leaders.

“Also, the naming of PENN Station (I LOVE Pennsylvania, but it is a direct competitor to New York, and ‘eating New York’s lunch!’) to TRUMP STATION, was brought up by certain politicians and construction union heads, not me – IT IS JUST MORE FAKE NEWS!”

READ MORE: ‘This Is Authoritarianism’: Experts Warn on US Midterm Elections

New York’s Pennsylvania Station was named for the Pennsylvania Railroad — which built the original terminal over a century ago — not the state of Pennsylvania.

The president also attacked the Gateway Tunnel project, calling it a “future boondoggle” that will “cost many BILLIONS OF DOLLARS more than projected or anticipated” and be “financially catastrophic for the region.”

Some mocked the president’s remarks.

“A completely unhinged tantrum from someone who didn’t get their way,” commented U.S. Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ). “

I don’t know one person in NJ, Republican or Democrat, who doesn’t see the power and value of the Gateway Tunnel Project.”

The Independent’s White House correspondent Andrew Feinberg asked, “Does he think Penn Station was named after the Commonwealth?”

READ MORE: Far Right Extremist Leader Puts Trump on Notice Over Epstein Files

 

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