Signal scandal is the most idiotic breach of security imaginable

The addition of a journalist to a top secret messaging group about bombing Yemen is the latest unbelievable development from Trump's team of top chumps

US defense secretary Pete Hegseth: Has he returned to being — how to put this delicately? — someone you probably don’t want to give important tasks to 'after lunch'? Picture: AP /Mark Schiefelbein

Once again, we find ourselves having an anguished debate about mobile phones and online safety, in this case asking: should we ban the devices for US national security advisers under the age of 60? Do you know what your national security adviser is doing on his device? Is he using it to stay in touch with other guys in the big-man-osphere to talk about bombing Hooters? 

Or did he maybe add the editor-in-chief of a leading general interest magazine to a Signal group in the crucial period running up to a highly sensitive US military operation in Yemen, seemingly committing so many alleged crimes he should have a full-body orange jumpsuit tattooed on him for ever?