A signal flare lights up the night sky in a bright flash, captures everyone’s attention, and then fizzles and disappears. The recent controversy about the Signal group chat seems to be following that same course.

That episode regarded the U.S. military operation conducted two weeks ago against the Houthis — the Iran-sponsored military and political group that has been interfering with commercial shipping traffic and firing on U.S. Navy ships in the Red Sea since 2023. The operation was well planned and executed, but security in the hours before the mission was seriously compromised.

The shortcoming was made public in a scoop article in The Atlantic written by Jeffrey Goldberg, that publication’s editor-in-chief. Somehow, he was added to an electronic group chat among senior Trump administration officials discussing the planned attack via an ostensibly secure communications app called Signal.

The political blowback was immediate and hyperbolic. Political opponents deemed it a full-blown crisis, a national disgrace, and a catastrophic leak of military attack plans that endangered the mission and revealed sensitive commentary disparaging U.S. allies. The Trump administration’s reaction to the criticism didn’t help, wandering into futile attempts to argue that the information released was not actually classified. Facing the obvious security gap and moving to fix it would have been a far better response.

But an international crisis it was not, and Democrat demands that “heads roll” were absurd. But beyond the political buzz, there are elements of this episode that deserve serious attention. A bit of clarity might help.

First and foremost, we know what happened, but we don’t know how it happened. Nearly every news account describes the event as the result of the “inadvertent” or “accidental” inclusion of a “journalist” in the private, ultra-high-level chat group meeting of senior government leaders, including Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and others.

Of course, the journalist is none other than the editor-in-chief of one of the most virulently Trump-hating periodicals in the U.S. The notion that he was included in that group chat inadvertently is preposterous. To be clear, I don’t mean unlikely, surprising, or curious — I mean that it simply could not have happened without deliberate and surely malicious actions.

The explanation offered by The Atlantic’s journalists is laughable. They tell us that this sort of thing happens all the time, like carelessly forgetting to delete your mother-in-law’s email address in an email criticizing last night’s lasagna. Yup, happens all the time — you pick up the phone, misdial, and find yourself talking to King Charles of England. No — someone, somewhere, had to get Goldberg’s contact information, plant it into the chat group invitation, and ensure it would not be recognized by the other attendees. Who was it — and for what reason?

What surely was NOT inadvertent was Goldberg’s actions following the meeting. It’s hard to imagine behavior as disingenuous as his solemn harrumphing about the importance of keeping a tight lid on sensitive matters and then immediately broadcasting every sensitive detail to the world. And even if the chat session unfolded as he described — that he stumbled unexpectedly into an ultra-sensitive discussion among our government leaders — the ethical and responsible action would have been to identify his unintended presence, exit the meeting, and quietly inform the administration of the apparent glitch in their comms system.

There can be no doubt that what transpired was no accident — it was prearranged and deftly executed, intended to embarrass the administration.

Regarding Democrat demands for heads to roll, their insistence carries a distinct whiff of their signature Brett Kavanaugh opposition seven years ago. Unable to block a Supreme Court candidate not to their liking (as with their futile attempts over the last few months to block Trump cabinet appointments), they settle instead for savaging reputations — and, in so doing, diminishing public confidence in our government’s leaders.

As one ugly example, Representative Seth Moulton (D-MA), at a widely covered press conference, wondered aloud whether Hegseth is “just incompetent … or drunk.” It strikes me that officials who express concern about intemperate comments regarding America’s European allies might want to think twice before slandering our own leaders.

Trump’s choice of Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense was understandably controversial. Hegseth has no executive experience and clearly has his hands full in taking the reins of that giant, sprawling organization. But given his high-energy leadership style and the obvious enthusiasm he’s generated among our servicemen and women (as evidenced by skyrocketing recruitment levels), I’d posit that he’s off to a solid start.

In short, the Signal episode calls for two important actions. (1) We must find and hold accountable whoever is behind the eavesdropping on high-level leadership interactions (i.e., the real threat to domestic security). (2) Immediately close the gaps in comms systems used for such interactions. Beyond that, I believe most Americans see it for what it was: an embarrassing but not particularly damaging political flap.

To better use the “accident” label, we might look at this episode as not unlike the fender bender that might have been far more serious, and that reinforces the need to recognize, fix, and learn from our mistakes. I, for one, trust the team in place to do that.