Outside the Beltway

Accountability with a Vengeance

Michael Bailey · Friday, March 28, 2025 · 8 comments

Our laughably weak collective ability to focus on any public concern for more than a day is being tested more than ever in today’s overstimulating world—especially given Trump’s “flood the zone” strategy and our hyper-compressed news cycle. And yet, here it is Friday afternoon, and (some) people are still discussing the Signal foreign policy chat fiasco that broke on Monday. A work week’s worth of attention? That feels almost like a scandal.

Have we finally arrived at the moment when the Trump administration responds to domestic political pressure or congressional oversight? True, we’ve yet to see any fallout in the form of action taken by the administration—no effort to address the failure, no one held accountable. But it’s not out of the question.

Then again, it probably is.

I hope I’m wrong, but here’s why I believe meaningful accountability is unlikely. For one thing, far too few Republicans openly admit that what happened was either a problem or anything more than a glitch. A handful of Republican lawmakers and pundits acknowledge that a mistake was made, but their position seems to be that mistakes are inevitable and lessons have been learned. The responsible parties, they suggest, have suffered quite enough from searing introspection. It’s time to move on. In other words, no one cares about this issue anymore, and we’re all getting bored. That seems to be Sean Hannity’s stance. Others insist there was never a problem in the first place. Perhaps inspired by the memory of Trump 45’s “perfect” phone call to Ukrainian President Zelensky, they cannot fathom what the fuss is about. And of course, there are those who blame Jeffrey Goldberg, or dismiss the controversy as a hoax, or attribute it to the Deep State, or rely on some other deflective trope drawn from the Republican rhetorical toolkit.

One singularly powerful Trump rhetorical tactic in play here—just as it is everywhere in Trump World—is this: deny and accuse. When faced with wrongdoing, turn the tables. Deny and accuse. If the tactic gains no traction at first, deny harder and make even more audacious accusations. And you know what? It works. Every single time. There must be something in our primate evolutionary wiring that responds to outrageous acts of bravado on bended knee, leading us to conclude that no one—absolutely no one—could speak with such brazen confidence unless they were in the right. Trump has shown that confidence, bravado, and sheer audacity win the day. His followers have adopted his rhetorical playbook.

For example, my favorite take on the situation comes from this gem found in the American Spectator:

“The only reason this is news, then, is that Goldberg is attempting to demonstrate that he still has the ability, even if by accident, to penetrate a Republican administration and air something which might be interpreted as dirt. Except this isn’t dirt. This is more like an online peeping Tom who couldn’t catch the girls with their clothes off. It’s nothing, and in fact, it suggests just how clean an administration this is if Goldberg and his Watergate Fan Club pals have to resort to this in search of a scandal.”

How does one even begin to unpack such reasoning, let alone refute it? Equally perplexing is the tortured metaphor: Goldberg is a failed online peeping Tom who is trying to penetrate (if only by accident) a Republican administration. Wait. What?

But beyond the denials of wrongdoing, there’s a more illuminating reason why accountability for the Signal fiasco is likely off the table: within Trump’s ranks (especially J.D. Vance and Donald Trump Jr.), the argument has already shifted. It is no longer about denying or minimizing the scandal—it’s about silencing Republican criticism of Vice President Vance’s comparatively dovish posture in the call itself. Vance acts as if he knows the scandal will blow over. He’s already looking ahead, maneuvering to stamp out internal fights over the administration’s foreign policy. Accordingly, he has described the anonymous Republican officials who criticized his position in the group chat as cowards.

Vice President Vance is perfectly correct in calling his anonymous Republican critics cowards. But Vance’s purpose is not to embolden dissenters or encourage open discourse—it’s to silence any criticism of the administration, whether public or anonymous. Blind, cowering allegiance to the President is precisely the point of the Trump administration’s constant bullying.

The only form of accountability this administration seeks is retribution against those who dare to impede or criticize Dear Leader. As we are witnessing, if you are a foreign leader, failing to thank the President loudly and frequently enough may cost your country its sovereignty. Indeed, retribution—vindicating grievances—is the organizing principle of this administration. More than conservatism, fascism, or even populism, retribution is what gives coherence to Trump’s eclectic policy stances and choices of personnel.

I don’t know what to call an ideology based on vengeance, but whatever label it deserves, it is as far from the rule of law as the east is from the west.