‘Loose Lips Sink Ships’: Cisneros Calls Group Chat Leak ‘Complete Disregard For Operation Security’

2 days ago

During a press briefing on the Signal group chat leak on Tuesday, Rep. Gil Cisneros (D-CA) slammed Trump officials for a Signal group chat leak detailing Yemen war plans.

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Transcript

00:00I'd like to invite up Congressman Gil Cisneros.

00:05Thank you, Derek. Thanks, everyone, for being here today and giving us this opportunity to speak

00:12to you about how bravely this is. I'm Gil Cisneros. I represent California's 31st Congressional

00:18District. I'm a Navy veteran, but also I was a former Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel

00:23Readiness, working in the Pentagon, understanding how the security of that system kind of works

00:29and how you communicate. And I can tell you this, when I was in the Pentagon, when I was

00:34the Undersecretary, never ever did we use signal to plan anything, any meetings, any coordinate,

00:41any efforts, or give away definitely any details about operations that were currently going on.

00:48Anytime you talk with the Secretary or anything, right, is at a secret level. You have, as it's

00:55been already said, right, there are devices that you had. I had multiple devices in my office

01:00that were secure on secure networks, right, and then you had your unsecured network.

01:06Any operations or anything that was going on was definitely over secure channels.

01:12And that was not happening in this. And the thing that is really bothering me about this

01:17is the fact, too, that, you know, every office pretty much in the Pentagon is a skiff. I mean,

01:23definitely the Secretary of Defense's office, but yet he's communicating on his personal cell

01:29phone. You're not supposed to be taking cell phones or Bluetooth or any of those devices

01:35into your skiff where they can be kind of tapped into and listened to and brought into that

01:41environment. There is just a complete disregard for OPSEC, you know, for operation security

01:50by this administration. And then the audacity there is that the Secretary had actually said

01:56before this, too, right, that we're going to start getting down on OPSEC, that OPSEC was tight,

02:02and they're looking into this. And he's actually talking about polygraphing,

02:06you know, people there at the Pentagon to find out where the leaks are.

02:10Well, problem solved, right there with the Secretary of Defense. He should be the first

02:16in line there. He's the one who is creating the problems. You know, OPSEC is supposed to start

02:23with him. As it's been said, too, loose lips sink ships. That was something that every seaman

02:29learns when they joined the Navy, right there at the beginning of boot camp. Nobody would have

02:33ever thought that it would start with the National Security Advisor, as well as the Secretary of

02:38Defense are the ones who kind of laid out the information of where the details of this exercise

02:43were and how it was going. And so with that, thank you very much. And now I have the honor of

02:50introducing another former Navy colleague, Jimmy Padena. Thank you.

‘Loose Lips Sink Ships’: Cisneros Calls Group Chat Leak ‘Complete Disregard For Operation Security’

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