The existence of a group chat including Hegseth, his wife and others prompts calls for the defence secretary to step down
Pressure was mounting on the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, on Monday following reports of a second Signal chatroom used to discuss sensitive military operations, while a former top Pentagon spokesperson slammed the US’s top military official’s leadership of the Department of Defence.
John Ullyot, who resigned last week after initially serving as Pentagon spokesperson, said in an opinion essay published by Politico on Sunday that the Pentagon has been overwhelmed by staff drama and turnover in the initial months of the second Trump administration.
Ullyot called the situation a “full-blown meltdown” that could cost Hegseth, a 44-year-old former Fox News host and National Guard officer, his job as defence secretary.
“It’s been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon. From leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings, the dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president, who deserves better from his senior leadership,” Ullyot wrote.
Donald Trump Jr pushed back on the opinion piece, saying the author is “officially exiled” from Trump’s political movement. “This guy is not America First,” Trump Jr wrote on X. “I’ve been hearing for years that he works his ass off to subvert my father’s agenda. That ends today.”
The warning came as the New York Times reported that Hegseth shared details of a US attack on Yemeni Houthi rebels last month in a second Signal chat that he created himself and included his wife, his brother and about a dozen other people.
The Guardian has independently confirmed the existence of Hegseth’s own private group chat.
According to unnamed sources familiar with the chat who spoke to the Times, Hegseth sent the private group of his personal associates some of the same information, including the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets that would strike Houthi rebel targets in Yemen, that he also shared with another Signal group of top officials that was created by Mike Waltz, the national security adviser.
The existence of the Signal group chat created by Waltz, in which detailed attack plans were divulged by Hegseth to other Trump administration officials on the private messaging app, were made public by the Atlantic magazine’s Jeffrey Goldberg, who had been accidentally added to the group.
The existence of a second Signal chat, coupled with Ullyot’s devastating portrait of the Pentagon under Hegseth, is likely to increase pressure on the White House to take action.
Trump defended Hegseth at the annual Easter egg roll event at the White House.
“Pete’s doing a great job,” the president said. “Just ask the Houthis how he’s doing. It’s just fake news. They just bring up stories. It sounds like disgruntled employees. He was put there to get rid of a lot of bad people and that’s what he’s doing. You don’t always have friends when you do that.”
Hegseth himself blamed “disgruntled former employees” in remarks to reporters at the same event.
“What a big surprise that a few leakers get fired and suddenly a bunch of hit pieces come out from the same media that peddled the Russia hoax,” Hegseth said. “This is what the media does. They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees, and then they try to slash and burn people and ruin their reputations.”
He continued: “Not going to work with me, because we’re changing the defence department, putting the Pentagon back in the hands of war-fighters. And anonymous smears from disgruntled former employees on old news don’t matter.”
The Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, Sean Parnell, issued a statement in a post on X on Sunday night following the New York Times report.
“Another day, another old story – back from the dead,” Parnell said. “The Trump-hating media continues to be obsessed with destroying anyone committed to President Trump’s agenda. This time, the New York Times – and all other Fake News that repeat their garbage – are enthusiastically taking the grievances of disgruntled former employees as the sole sources for their article.
“There was no classified information in any Signal chat, no matter how many ways they try to write the story. What is true is that the Office of the Secretary of Defense is continuing to become stronger and more efficient in executing President Trump’s agenda. We’ve already achieved so much for the American warfighter, and will never back down.”
Tammy Duckworth, a Democratic senator from Illinois and combat veteran, said in a statement that the second Signal chat put the lives of US men and women in uniform at greater risk:
“How many times does Pete Hegseth need to leak classified intelligence before Donald Trump and Republicans understand that he isn’t only a f*cking liar, he is a threat to our national security?
“Every day he stays in his job is another day our troops’ lives are endangered by his singular stupidity,” Duckworth said. “He must resign in disgrace.”
Jack Reed, a Democratic senator from Rhode Island and a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the report, if true, “is another troubling example of Secretary Hegseth’s reckless disregard for the laws and protocols that every other military service member is required to follow”.
Reed called on Hegseth to “immediately explain why he reportedly texted classified information that could endanger American service members’ lives on a commercial app that included his wife, brother, and personal lawyer”.
Reed said he had “warned that Mr Hegseth lacks the experience, competence, and character to run the Department of Defence. In light of the ongoing chaos, dysfunction, and mass firings under Mr Hegseth’s leadership, it seems that those objections were well-founded.”
Ullyot warned that under Hegseth, “the Pentagon focus is no longer on warfighting, but on endless drama” and said “the president deserves better than the current mishegoss at the Pentagon.”
Source: The Guardian
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