In a chat group that included his wife, brother, and personal attorney, U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth provided specifics of a strike on Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis in March, a person familiar with the situation told Reuters earlier this week.
Hegseth's use of an unclassified messaging system to share extremely sensitive security details is called into question by the disclosure of a second Signal chat. This comes at a particularly sensitive time for him, as senior officials were removed from the Pentagon last week as part of an internal leak investigation.
In the second chat, Hegseth shared details of the attack, which were similar to those revealed last month by The Atlantic magazine after its editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was accidentally included in a separate chat on the Signal app, in an embarrassing incident involving all of President Donald Trump's most senior national security officials.
The individual familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, stated that the second chat, which comprised around a dozen people, was set up during his confirmation process to discuss administrative concerns rather than real military planning.
According to the insider, the chat included details about the air attack schedule.
Jennifer, Hegseth's wife and a former Fox News producer, has attended classified meetings with foreign military counterparts, according to photographs released by the Pentagon. During a meeting with his British colleague at the Pentagon in March, Hegseth's wife was found sitting behind him. Hegseth's brother serves as a Department of Homeland Security liaison to the Pentagon.
The Trump administration has aggressively pursued leaks, which Hegseth has warmly supported in the Pentagon. Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said, without evidence, that the media was "enthusiastically taking the grievances of disgruntled former employees as the sole sources for their article.”
Hegeseth'S tumultuous moment
Democratic lawmakers stated Hegseth could no longer continue in his position. "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 was severely injured in combat in 2004, stated that Hegseth "must resign in disgrace.”
The latest disclosure comes just days after Dan Caldwell, one of Hegseth's top aides, was taken from the Pentagon after being identified during an investigation into leaks at the Department of Defence. Although Caldwell is not as well-known as other senior Pentagon officials, he has played an important role for Hegseth and was chosen the Pentagon's point of contact by the Secretary during the first Signal chat.