Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared details of a March attack on Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis in a message group that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer, according to The New York Times, citing four people with knowledge of the events. The information included flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets
The revelations of a second Signal chat, after the reporting from Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic Magazine last month, raise more questions about Hegseth's use of an unclassified messaging system to share highly sensitive security details and come at a particularly delicate moment for him, with senior officials ousted from the Pentagon last week as part of an internal leak investigation.
3 View gallery
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and his wife Jennifer
(Photo: Jose Luis Magana / AP)
In the second chat in the group Hegseth himself created, shared details of the attack similar to those revealed by The Atlantic magazine after its editor-in-chief was included in a separate chat on the Signal app by mistake, in an embarrassing incident involving all of President Donald Trump's most senior national security officials.
The person familiar with the matter, who was speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the second chat included about a dozen people and was created during his confirmation process to discuss administrative issues rather than detailed military planning. The chat included details of the schedule of the air strikes, the person said.
Hegseth's wife, Jennifer, a former Fox News producer, has attended sensitive meetings with foreign military counterparts, according to images the Pentagon has publicly posted. During a meeting Hegseth had with his British counterpart at the Pentagon in March, his wife could be seen sitting behind him. Hegseth's brother is a Department of Homeland Security liaison to the Pentagon.
The Trump administration has aggressively pursued leaks, an effort that has been enthusiastically embraced by Hegseth at the Pentagon.
The Pentagon did not immediately reply to a request for comment. The White House did not immediately return a message.
Tumultuous moment for Hagseth
Democratic lawmakers said Hegseth could no longer stay in his job. "We keep learning how Pete Hegseth put lives at risk," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a post to X. "But Trump is still too weak to fire him. Pete Hegseth must be fired."
Senator Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran who suffered grave injuries in combat in 2004, said that Hegseth "must resign in disgrace."
A U.S. official at the Pentagon questioned how Hegseth could keep his job after the latest news.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe testified last month at a Senate hearing that national security adviser Mike Waltz set up the Signal chat for unclassified coordination and that teams would be "provided with information further on the high side for high-side communication."
At the Senate hearing, Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said Hegseth would be the one to determine what defense information was classified. "The Secretary of Defense is the original classification authority for DOD in deciding what would be classified information," Ratcliffe said.
3 View gallery
U.S. President Donald Trump with his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth
(Photo: Brendan Smialowski / AFP)
The latest revelation comes days after Dan Caldwell, one of Hegseth's leading advisers, was escorted from the Pentagon after being identified during an investigation into leaks at the Department of Defense.
Get the Ynetnews app on your smartphone: Google Play: https://bit.ly/4eJ37pE | Apple App Store: https://bit.ly/3ZL7iNv
Although Caldwell is not as well-known as other senior Pentagon officials, he has played a critical role for Hegseth and was named as the Pentagon's point person by the Secretary in the first Signal chat.
"We are incredibly disappointed by the manner in which our service at the Department of Defense ended," Caldwell posted on X on Saturday. "Unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door."
Following Caldwell's departure, less-senior officials Darin Selnick, who recently became Hegseth's deputy chief of staff, and Colin Carroll, who was chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg, were put on administrative leave and fired on Friday.