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Confirmed. It doesn’t surprise me. A honeypot this elaborate, and with no obvious enforcement mechanism, would have made even less sense.
Sharing classified information is not generally a crime. Not unless you’ve signed the corresponding SF-312 and accepted the obligation to protect it. What are the odds that anyone in this chat had done so?
In any other administration, this would be a perfectly respectable scandal. Perhaps a little higher up than usual. It’s normally staffers who mishandle communications. Today, though, I don’t expect anything to come of it. Let me make a quick check of which step we’re on in the narcissist’s prayer. Yup, we’re still on “…and if I did, it wasn’t that bad.”
20% that anyone from the group chat faces a criminal charge.
Everyone in the chat except Vance and Goldberg should have done - everyone in the Executive Branch, no matter how senior, is subject to the executive orders regarding classified information except the President (who doesn't have to obey his own orders) and the VP (who is kinda sorta part of Congress as honorary President of the Senate).
Although in this case that doesn't matter for criminal liability - if the disclosure of military secrets to an unauthorised person was wilful, it is criminalised by the Espionage Act, which predates the modern system of classification and doesn't rely on it. If it was negligent, then it is an employee discipline matter and not a criminal one in any case.
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