Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared details of a March attack on Yemen’s Houthis in a message group that included his wife, brother, and personal lawyer, the New York Times reported on Sunday, raising more questions about his use of an unclassified messaging system to share highly-sensitive security details.
Hegseth allegedly shared the same details of the attack that were revealed last month by The Atlantic magazine after its editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, 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 Times, citing four sources familiar with the message group, said that the second chat included details of the schedule of the air strikes.
Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer, a former Fox News producer, has also reportedly attended sensitive meetings with foreign military counterparts, the Wall Street Journal has separately reported.
Revelations of another use of Signal for classified information come as one of Hegseth’s leading advisers, Dan Caldwell, was escorted from the Pentagon last week after being identified during an investigation into leaks at the Department of Defense, a U.S. official told Reuters.
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, officials said.
The Trump administration has aggressively pursued leaks, an effort that has been enthusiastically embraced by Hegseth at the Pentagon.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell, without evidence, said that the media was “enthusiastically taking the grievances of disgruntled former employees as the sole sources for their article.”
“The Trump-hating media continues to be obsessed with destroying anyone committed to President Trump’s agenda. … We’ve already achieved so much for the American warfighter, and will never back down,” Parnell said in a statement on X.
Meanwhile, a U.S. official at the Pentagon questioned how Hegseth could keep his job after the latest news.
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.”
