Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth blamed “disgruntled” former staffers at the Pentagon for leaks to the media about reports that he allegedly shared sensitive military secrets in a second Signal group chat.
Speaking Tuesday on “Fox & Friends,” Mr. Hegseth pushed back against allegations that anything he might have shared in a Signal group chat could have put the lives of military personnel in danger.
He called the Signal discussions “informal” and “unclassified,” and said the accusations were part of an ongoing scheme to cause problems for the White House.
The latest allegation comes about a month after Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic, reported that he had been inadvertently included in a Pentagon Signal app chat about military actions against the Houthis. On Sunday, John Ullyott, a former Defense Department spokesman, wrote in Politico that the Pentagon under Pete Hegseth was in the midst of a “full-blown meltdown.”
Two top advisers to Mr. Hegseth, Dan Caldwell and Darin Selnick, were escorted from the Pentagon last week as part of an internal inquiry into unauthorized leaks. Colin Carroll, chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen A. Feinberg, was also removed from his position after questioning by investigators.
The three now former Pentagon staffers posted a statement on X over the weekend saying they were “incredibly disappointed” about how their time in the Trump administration had come to an end.
“Unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out of the door. All three of us served our country honorably in uniform — for two of us, this included deployments to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” they wrote. “We still have not been told what exactly we were investigated for, if there is still an active investigation, or if there was even a real investigation of ‘leaks’ to begin with.”
Mr. Hegseth said the result of the Defense Department’s internal inquiry into press leaks at the Pentagon will be provided to the Justice Department.
“What a big surprise that a few leakers get fired and suddenly a bunch of hit pieces come out from the media that produced the ‘Russia hoax’ (but) won’t give back their Pulitzers,” he said Monday from the White House Easter Egg Roll. “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.”
Mr. Hegseth has both supporters and critics on Capitol Hill and, most importantly, the backing of President Trump, who dismissed the latest controversy of the use of the Signal app.
“I thought they [the press] gave that up two weeks ago. It’s all just the same old stuff from the media,” Mr. Trump said Monday from the White House. “He [Mr. Hegseth] is doing a great job. Ask the Houthis how he’s doing.”
Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Mr. Hegseth has shown “reckless disregard” for the communications protocols that any other service member would be expected to follow.
“He must immediately explain why he reportedly texted classified information that could endanger American servicemembers’ lives on a commercial app that included his wife, brother, and personal lawyer,” Sen. Reed said Sunday. “I urge the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General to include this latest incident in its ongoing investigation of Mr. Hegseth’s mishandling of classified information.”
Sen. Tom Cotton, Arkansas Republican, called The New York Times report a clear case of “liberal media publishing sour grapes from a disgruntled former employee.”
Defense Department spokesman Sean Parnell accused The New York Times of “enthusiastically” accepting the grievances of disgruntled former Pentagon employees as the sole source for the article.
“They relied only on the words of people who were fired … and appear to have a motive to sabotage the Secretary and the President’s agenda,” Mr. Parnell wrote on X. “There was no classified information in any Signal chat, no matter how many ways they try to write the story.”
From the moment he was tapped to be defense secretary, Mr. Hegseth has faced opposition from those who said his resume was too thin to run the Pentagon.
He said President Trump directed him to restore “lethality” to the U.S. military and sweep away any vestiges of social justice programs commonly referred to as diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI.
Even some Republican lawmakers have questioned whether Mr. Hegseth should remain at the Pentagon. Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska said senior government officials should always assume that their phones are closely monitored by China and Russia, who can employ thousands of analysts to penetrate non-secure communications devices.
“I’ve assumed my phones were monitored since I was a colonel in Iraq and as commander of Ramstein,” Air Force Base, Mr. Bacon, said Monday on X. “Putting classified [information] on Signal is a security violation. No exceptions. I don’t care if you’re a Republican or Democrat, operational security is mandatory.”
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.
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