Signal-Gate: “JG” – The Plot Thickens?

I’ll try to make this short and sweet. “Signal-Gate” as it’s now being called is still a big item in the news tonight. It could blow up into something big enough to do real damage to Trump and the GOP given their efforts to sweep it under the rug. From the time I read the article in The Atlantic (even before I was finished) my mind kept going to the question of WHY none of the ‘Principals’ doing all the talking during those discussions ever addressed any comments to, or questions (i.e. what do you think?) to “JG.”  Jeffrey Goldberg was part of multiple chats including the one where Hegesth included a text of the actual Operations Plan!  Yet during all this no one seems to have ever questioned the presence/identity of “JG” which made me wonder if they knew, or thought they knew who “JG” was. But were mistaken.

In other words, did they assume JG was someone else? Someone they knew, say a journalist from a (mostly) friendly news outlet rather than a journalist from an objective, real news outlet like The Atlantic?  I bring this up because while I do tune into Fox sometimes it’s not often so I don’t know the major players there. The initials “JG” didn’t match up with anyone I initially thought of.  However after reading this story from Mediate tonight my spidey-senses are tingling.  I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t know the name Jennifer Griffin before tonight.  I sure do now. It turns out she’s been with Fox since 1999 when she began reporting for them from Jerusalem. In 2007 she moved to the Pentagon and has become their chief National Security correspondent there.

To put it bluntly, Griffin is someone every single “Principal” in those Signal chats about the upcoming strike on the Houthis in Yemen was!  The linked Mediate story explores her seemingly being “benched” since sometime yesterday.  It seems that Fox correspondent notwithstanding she’s willing to offer some thoughts and questions that Team Trump doesn’t like. She sure as hell didn’t seem to be soft-peddling her coverage of Signal-Gate or giving Trumpty and his minions a pass.  It’s worth the time to go through her tweets but I said I wanted to make this short and sweet so I’ll move to the point I want to make.

Again, I first suggested yesterday that the inclusion of a journalist in the chat group might not have been a mistake at all, but only a mistake in the actual journalist that got included. I went on to suggest that no one questioned “JG” because a) they knew it was a journalist, and b) they ASSUMED it was a journalist at Fox.  If so, is it crazy to suggest that no one referred to or spoke to “JG” in the various chats because they ASSUMED it was Jennifer Griffin?  Jeffrey Goldberg/Jennifer Griffin. Same initials.  I happen to think it’s a fair question to ask.

Granted, given her less than supportive reporting on Signal-Gate before she was benched one can assume Fox had reason to sideline her given the attempts to play down the gravity of this scandal. But given how ubiquitous she’s been when it comes to Pentagon and National Security reporting, how she has professional relationships with all those Trump people in the chats I can imagine honchos at Fox thinking ‘if she were so connected surely there’s have been conversations outside the chat group with her!’  And that she in turn would have given the bosses a limited heads up to be ready to post glowing “Look at what Trump did” after the airstrikes.  So Fox bosses have double reasons to be pissed at her.

My main point though is that this could wind up being a very big piece of the puzzle. That the answer to the question of how Goldberg not only got included in the chat group but NO ONE question “JG” being in on all the chats (but never uttering a peep) is because Jennifer Griffin was the journalist that was supposed to be ‘in the know’ and everyone else in the group assumed that’s who “JG” was.  Think about it…

****** Zoomers, if you have any spare change between the cushions, we could use it. We’re in a rough season now with half the country depressed and a lot of people tuning out from politics. In all events, thank you for coming here to read. We’ll get through this together, I have complete faith. When I do not know. Ursula ******

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