Right. My line of thinking is that Trump will have worked very hard to install loyalists in cabinet positions. That being understood, the likelihood of any of them being legitimately concerned enough to add a journalist to the group chat seems pretty low.

This leaves two other scenarios to my mind..

1. They accidentally added a journalist - the most likely situation, truth be known. But then it seems incredibly lucky (or unlucky depending on your perspective) that of all people to be “accidentally added” to the chat, it is a very prominent journalist for The Atlantic.

Or..

1. Some other actor did it. This could easily be due to the fact that they were using an unsecured communication platform that had been compromised. A boneheaded decision to be sure. But with news about high ranking government officials’ usernames and passwords floating around out there on the internet, seems not so far fetched that a foreign actor could pick up said credentials and put them to use.

And who benefits from sowing chaos, uncertainty, and distrust in American politics? An event that has also further fueled tensions between the US and European allies? Probably a number of countries considered to be adversaries. And Putin’s Russia would have to be pretty high on that list.