A combination of “sloppiness” and reckless disregard for the law led to the “emergency” situation created by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth sharing top-secret war plans in a Signal chat with other high-level Trump administration officials – and a reporter.
That’s according to Rep Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who made clear during a CNN interview hours after the bombshell report emerged that the development involving highly sensitive information being discussed freely via a messaging app violated the law.
“Most certainly it did,” Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said when asked if the group chat broke the law. “And it reflects a general sloppiness and negligence in the whole approach of the administration as they've gotten started here.”
Raskin continued to blast the Trump administration, who by the lawmaker’s count has “been struck down more than 40 different times by federal courts…because they've acted in such a cavalier disregard of what the rule of law requires.”
He then called attention to a key aspect of the latest blunder to emerge from the Trump administration.
ALSO READ: ‘Glaring crisis’: Postal service blasted for poor policing amid crime wave
“If you look at what the underlying plan was, it's Congress that declares war on Venezuela or on Yemen,” Raskin said. “It's not the President of the United States. So it's both this tremendous operational negligence and sloppiness that has been shown, but also the idea that they act in complete defiance of what the Constitution says and what the rule of law stands for.”
Raskin also knocked Republicans for their outrage over Hillary Clinton’s alleged use of classified information as secretary of state.
“Well, it'll be child's play to go back and find all of the Republicans who were demanding congressional investigations, and that Hillary Clinton apologize and leave the campaign and so on, based over her handling of the information, most of which was not classified," the Maryland lawmaker told CNN.
He added: “I think this was clearly classified and of an extremely sensitive and significant nature. So I would hope that they would at least acknowledge the emergency that is represented by virtue of these kinds of practices, and they would try to tighten them up.”
Watch the clip below or at this link: