"abysmal mistake" makes it sound like this wasn't a considered action and willful disregard for both op-sec and the law. There is zero chance these guys didn't know what they were doing...
At minimum, Mike Waltz is retired special ops, Rubio has had high-level clearance for ages from his time in the Senate, same for Gabbard in the House. None of them responded "Hey, this is poor op-sec and illegal, perhaps take this to an approved messaging service?"
Im not defending anything here but i also know how unsophisticated executives are and these guys are for sure not technical savvy people. Normally handlers do all the orchestration. I mean it looks pretty clear they chose to work outside the standard operating channels.
Basically a journalist was added to a discussion group of high ranking politicians.
This journalist is well known within those circles and has plenty of access to those people regardless.
The conversation may have been war plans, but the action is pretty uncontroversial across both parties, and went off without a problem so the impact of the leak was nil.
Seems like a great topic for making political hay, but twins that a mistake that can be easily corrected.
This is an abysmal mistake on the big stage for a bunch of new people on the job. That it is the intelligence community makes it feel so much worse.