[cjohnson318]

Why shouldn't punishment or prosecution be suggested. I've worked with classified information, and I would have been held accountable for my actions, why shouldn't they? I'm tired of this Too Important To Have Consequences business. It defeats the whole purpose of having qualifications, and security, and rules of any kind.

[Aeolun]

> I'm tired of this Too Important To Have Consequences business

Sure, but short of something similar to the UH CEO, do you think anything will actually happen to them?

If they’re doing this then the president presumably knows and does too. Even if they get prosecuted and convicted (after years of legal nonsense) they’d just get pardoned.

[cjohnson318]

No, I don't think anything will change, but I'm still tired of it.

[rcpt]

Anything less than criminal prosecution would be an abomination of justice.

[Galanwe]

Well once you've stated that the president is immune and can pardon whoever for whatever, there's really not much to do. The US needs a new constitution to enforce this, otherwise the very concept of justice cannot exist.

[vFunct]

Absolutely not going to happen with the opposition party existing simply to supply Israel with more weapons. Chuck Schumer, the highest ranking opposition leader, the other day openly stated "My job is to make sure the left supports Israel".

Why would that level of anti-democratic corruption have any interest in justice, when the very core of that party is based on maintaining racist injustice around the world?

The only thing we can hope for is that our system collapses and our economy weakens, while foreign economies grow.

[maeil]

In the US, you can fly multiple planes into skyscrapers, rape three whole kindergartens, and lynch an entire race to extermination. As long as you then win the next election before you get convicted, you're in the clear.

This is the United States of America.

[chrisco255]

The U.S. doesn't need a new constitution. If you don't like the current president, you vote for a new one in 4 years. That's how it works.

[Galanwe]

If there is anything to learn from the current situation IMHO, it's that 1) the US needs a stronger constitution to prevent a take over, and 2) it needs a new election system to avoid binary elections, which lead to extreme policy turnover and candidate fatigue.

There's nothing wrong with writing a new constitution. France is at its 5th iteration, and some candidates propose a 6th republic, nothing dictates that you're supposed to get it right on the first try.

[chrisco255]

The U.S. is the world's oldest democracy. It is functioning just fine.

France has been toppled by internal revolutions and external enemies multiple times in the time that the U.S. has existed. It's not an example to aspire to.

[free_bip]

The US has gone through a dozen constitutional crises in the past 2 months and you call that functioning "just fine"?

[lurkersince2013]

It’s looking less and less functioning and less and less like a democracy every day.

And give France a bit more credit; they were instrumental in the US’s own internal revolution against the British.

[hamasho]

Honestly, I'm giving up hoping for even a fraction of deserved punishment too. It's hard to handle the emotional dissonance I feel repeatedly when I see injustice, so I've adjusted myself to expect minimal or no punishment and just hope things improve a little. I know this is exactly what those people who repeatedly do malicious things want to happen, and I'm not suggesting we give up seeking social justice. I just can't handle the rage I feel every time or I'll suffer from severe depression again. I need to save my willpower to still hope for a better world and to encourage or support people who are actually working to improve society.

[0xEF]

I'm in the same boat. This whole thing is a War of Attrition, and my enemies are willing because I am getting too old and increasingly stressed out to keep up with and counter their irrationality. I honestly don't know where they get the energy to continuously be so stupid as to take classified information to a group chat, encrypted or not, like they're planning a night out.

These morons are going to get American citizens killed due to gross incompetence. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that half my country said "yep, let's go with these guys" when they saw a bunch of bungling Nazis yelling at clouds like something out of Hogan's Heroes. I'd laugh at the absurdity of it all if I didn't think we were in genuine danger.

[mandmandam]

> I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that half my country said "yep, let's go with these guys" when they saw a bunch of bungling Nazis yelling at clouds like something out of Hogan's Heroes.

I'm still trying to square how 98% of American voters went for candidates promising to continue arming the world's most live-streamed genocide, even with all those protests; even with all the footage we've seen.

How it didn't end after the Al-Nasr babies story, or after Biden was caught laundering lies about beheaded babies, or the NYT laundering lies about mass rape, I just don't know. And still the Greens couldn't get 5%?

There's something deeply dark and disturbed across the entirety of American society, and it seems like most of us can't even see it... Well, the consequences will arrive regardless.

[devaler]

> I'm still trying to square how 98% of American voters went for candidates promising to continue arming the world's most live-streamed genocide, even with all those protests; even with all the footage we've seen

in case you’re not being flippant and genuinely believe what you’re saying, it’s because we had only two viable candidates, one of whom should never have been legitimized. the line of thinking you present throws the baby out with the bathwater and represents a false choice. it comes across as saying that you’d rather do nothing than do something to—if not move things in the right direction—at least make it easier to permit the right direction in the future. no, instead you or others like you choose to exercise your cynical blend of moral superiority, demonstrating that you care more about your own sense of self worth than actually, you know, holding your nose and doing something. holders of that philosophy can’t seem to stand the smell of ‘imperfect’, regardless of how much damage they’ll allow to happen in the name of some false standard.

[mandmandam]

Zero flippancy, none.

> we had only two viable candidates

That's a major part of the problem, and not one to be ignored or accepted.

> the line of thinking you present throws the baby out with the bathwater and represents a false choice.

Nope. It's simple facts. Both 'viable' candidates promised to continue arming a nation which is currently conducting genocide, as confirmed by basically every major human rights group and even some Israeli genocide scholars. That's thoroughly illegal by long-held, hard-won domestic and international law.

You can argue as to why that is, or accuse people who say so of "cycnicism" and "moral superiority", but it's a fact and needs to be said.

There is NO good reason for Harris to have ignored the wishes of the vast majority (77%) of her voter base in order to keep arming mass slaughter. Turning around on that one choice would have won her the election in a landslide, and anyone who looked at the polls knew it.

> you care more about your own sense of self worth

Again, it's simple facts. America is so thoroughly depraved that 98% of voters chose to go for someone arming an active genocide.

Not about me, not about my self worth (bro, I'm an anonymous account with basically no reputation to win or lose here). It's about America, and how a large part of it got conned into thinking that voting for a genocidaire was the right and practical thing to do somehow.

If genocide was properly considered as beyond the pale; far, far over any basic red line for human decency, then Americans would have gone for a third party candidate, or forced a change in nominations from the two 'viable' parties. It's up for debate why they didn't do that, but the simple fact is that 98% of US voters voted for continuing a live-streamed series of atrocities.

> holders of that philosophy can’t seem to stand the smell of ‘imperfect’,

The gulf between 'perfect' and 'complicit in genocide' is so, so vast. I refuse to believe that you can't understand that.

[0xEF]

You're fighting a losing battle, I'm afraid. Instead of trying to justify your position, explain to me and my fellow voters what the alternative third option was when we were presented with Kamala or Trump?

We don't like this any more than you do, yet you point the finger and offer no solutions, plan, or course of action. Your obstinacy and that of people like you served only to hand the election to those you so vehemently stand against, but rather than admit your own part in this mess we are now in, you chose to attack the people who made a rational choice to vote for Kamala given the circumstance.

I'm sorry, but you're part of the problem, here. Accept that and heal.

[FeloniousHam]

> I'm still trying to square how 98% of American voters went for candidates promising to continue arming the world's most live-streamed genocide, even with all those protests; even with all the footage we've seen.

I assume you're referring to the livestreamed October 7th attacks?

[hn_throwaway_99]

Do you honestly think that (a) Trump's Justice Department would prosecute any of these offenses, and (b) even if so, that Trump wouldn't just pardon anyone involved?

[cjohnson318]

Yeah, there's no way anything is going to happen to these guys. I'm saying that's a great suggestion, and one that everyone should be able to agree on.

But yeah, I agree with you. Nothing is going to happen. Just like no one at the top has been held to any kind of a standard at all since maybe Nixon. Who knows, if he had just stuck it out maybe he would have gotten off too.

[belter]

The corruption is now, total and absolute. A complete Nero Court like the decadent days of the end of the Roman Empire.

"Trump’s crypto empire set to expand with new stablecoin and investment fund offerings" - https://apnews.com/article/trump-crypto-world-liberty-truth-...

"...Witkoff and his father, Trump’s special diplomatic envoy Steve Witkoff, helped launch World Liberty Financial with Trump and his sons last year. Under the terms outlined on the company’s website, a Trump-owned company has the “right to receive 75% of the net protocol revenues” from World Liberty Financial after expenses..."

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18077789-dying-every-day

[_Tev]

Just a nitpick: Nero was nowhere close to "the end of the Roman Empire".

[poulsbohemian]

We all know this is the likely outcome, but Congress should use its powers to force the Trump administration to be public in not prosecuting and in pardoning, for the purposes of upholding rule of law to the extent possible. And the forth estate needs to throw both in their face to ensure the public understands both how everything about both what they did, and how the Trump administration will respond, is both unlawful and harmful to our country.

[adrr]

Do you think they’ll get prosecuted? I am willing to bet money that congress won’t even have hearings on it.

[reverius42]

Congress is already having hearings (at the committee level): https://www.axios.com/2025/03/24/congress-yemen-signal-hegse...

But it's not clear that will progress to anything further.

[asteroidburger]

The Senate Intelligence Committee already held a hearing today: https://www.npr.org/2025/03/25/nx-s1-5339484/signal-war-plan...

[belter]

Where the director of the Intelligence Services, refused to say, if she was participating on the Signal thread with her government issued phone, or with her personal phone...

[sethammons]

Long pause: "I don't recall."

The exact legal advice passed on to me around answering questions in a deposition played out live; wild.

[chrisco255]

None of what they said was actually classified, and if the conversation included the president and vice president, then they inherently decide what is and is not classified. The power of the executive branch is vested in the president.

[mikeyouse]

This didn't age well..

1. The conversation didn't include the President. Here's the full participant list for that thread: https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:on5oeyw...

2. There was tons of classified material shared including specific flight times and weapons systems. Here's a helpful side-by-side on what operational details are by default classified as Secret: https://bsky.app/profile/secretsandlaws.bsky.social/post/3ll...

[mullingitover]

Doesn’t matter, they were conducting government business on a clandestine private system with the intent of evading public records laws. Literally the crime they endlessly accused Clinton of.

[chrisco255]

They have to archive the messages and they have staffers in those chats whose job is to do just that. The Biden administration used Signal as well. It's perfectly fine as long as it's archived.

[mullingitover]

Two problems with this:

How were the staffers archiving the disappearing messages?

What evidence do you have that the Biden administration conducted official government business on Signal?[1]

If they were above board and legal with this they wouldn’t have forced their republican congressional oversight committee to drag them into hearings.

[1] https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-cia-director-blames-biden-2...

[chrisco255]

Signal does not mandate that messages be disappeared, that's a customized setting. But there are multiple ways to archive including simple screenshots.

Here is CISA page updated last under Biden's admin:

https://www.cisa.gov/resources-tools/resources/mobile-commun...

In the PDF on that page you'll see Signal recommended for communication.

[skyyler]

Are the reports of the chat making use of Signal's auto-deleting feature incorrect then?

[chrisco255]

Given that we all know the content of these messages, they are clearly archivable.

[vharuck]

The information they discussed is almost always classified. If somebody were to declassify it so that these discussions could take place on insecure devices at insecure locations, then it's gross incompetence. There's a reason this kind of information is classified.

This is like ripping the warning sticker off an oxygen tank and pretending that makes it safe to use while smoking.

[cjohnson318]

I'm pretty sure most of it was classified, which is why they chose Signal instead of WhatsApp.

[outside1234]

But have you considered that they are Billionaires and therefore can do whatever they want?

[jjallen]

I don’t think everyone involved in this fiasco are billionaires.

[vichle]

They will be before this is over.

[belter]

The alternative explanation, is that they have so much dirt on Trump, they can't be fired...

[cjohnson318]

Like my dad always said, "money talks and shit walks".