Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth looped family members and his personal lawyer into a second Signal chat discussing plans to attack Houthi rebels in Yemen last month, according to a new report.
In the group chat, Hegseth’s wife, former Fox News producer Jennifer Hegseth, and his brother were among those privy to the flight schedules of the F/A-18 Hornets launching an air strike against the Houthis, four people with inside information about the second chat told The New York Times.
A person familiar with the chat’s contents and recipients confirmed the second chat’s existence to The Associated Press. Dubbed “Defense Team Huddle,” it included 13 people, the anonymous source told AP.
It was a separate thread than the one that included The Atlantic’s editor Jeffrey Goldberg, though it transpired the same day and discussed the same attack, the Times reported.
Blowback to the latest incarnation of “Signalgate” was immediate.
“The details keep coming out,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer posted on X. “We keep learning how Pete Hegseth put lives at risk. But Trump is still too weak to fire him. Pete Hegseth must be fired.”
Comment on the second chat group was not immediately released by the White House, the National Security Council or the Pentagon, AP noted.
Jennifer Hegseth had already raised eyebrows by attending sensitive meetings with foreign leaders alongside her husband, the Wall Street Journal reported. And while Hegseth’s brother Phil Hegseth and personal lawyer Tim Parlatore both work at the Pentagon, the Times reported there was no clear reason for them to be on the need-to-know list.
Numerous military experts, both former and current officials, have said such information is classified and that its release may have endangered pilots. The Defense Department’s acting inspector general is investigating the first Signal snafu as requested by the Senate Armed Services Committee under Republican Chairman Roger Wicker of Mississippi and ranking Democratic member Jack Reed of Rhode Island.
The Trump administration downplayed the first breach amid numerous officials’ insistence that nothing classified had been shared. Goldberg then released screen shots of relevant portions demonstrating the material was indeed ultrasensitive. National security adviser Mike Waltz took responsibility for having erroneously added the journalist.
Sunday’s disclosure came just after three of Hegseth’s former senior advisers were escorted from the Pentagon, accused of leaking information, though the Defense Department has yet to say what the “recent unauthorized disclosures” entailed. The three called the allegations “baseless attacks.” Separately, former Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot was asked to resign last week.
With News Wire Services
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