Plummeting into Signal-gate: Giving stupidity a bad name

“ANY security professional – military, government or otherwise – would be fired on the spot for this type of conduct, and criminally prosecuted for being so reckless with this kind of information,” insisted then Fox News pundit Pete Hegseth in 2016, as he criticised Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for using a private server for her work as the Obama administration’s secretary of state.

“If it was anyone other than Hillary Clinton, they would be in jail right now,” the future secretary of defence said, adding: “The fact that she wouldn’t be held accountable for this, I think, blows the mind of anyone who’s held our nation’s secrets dear and who’s had a top-secret clearance like I have and others who know that even one hiccup causes a problem.”

Indeed, during the 2016 presidential campaign, then Republican candidate Donald Trump repeatedly attacked his Democratic rival Clinton for causing a security breach with her use of the e-mail server.