Trump defends Defence Secretary after second Signal chat leak

US President Donald Trump has backed his country’s Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth after he reportedly shared top-secret details of an airstrike in Yemen to a Signal group chat that included his wife, personal lawyer and brother.

Hegseth’s distribution of highly sensitive military information to a messaging app for a second time come at a turbulent point for him and the Pentagon, Reuters reported on April 21st.

Last week, high-ranking officials were dismissed during an internal leak investigation. Trump told reporters: “Pete’s doing a great job. Everybody’s happy with him.” When asked if he was still confident in Hegseth, Trump said: “Oh totally.”

Two informed sources confirmed to NBC News that Hegseth sent the messages to a 13-person group chat,
after his aide had cautioned him not to distribute top-secret details on an nonsecure messaging system before the Yemen operation.

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Sources told the New York Times, that he included details on the flight schedules for F/A-18 Hornets commissioned with hitting Houthi targets in the chat.

Hegseth sent similar details about strikes in Yemen to those in the Signal chat leak that was revealed by The Atlantic in March. In the previous case, the publication’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was accidently included in another chat.

According to pictures from the Pentagon, the group chat included Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer, who was previously a Fox News producer. She had attended top-level talks with UK and NATO leaders.

Hegseth’s brother, Phil, and his legal advisor Tim Parlatore also received the messages. The Defence Department’s inspector general has launched an investigation into the chat.

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Hegseth said that he had talked with President Trump. He also said: “We are going to continue fighting, on the same page all the way.” Hegseth claimed the media took “anonymous sources from disgruntled, former employees, and then they tried to slash and burn people, and ruin their reputations,” The Guardian reported on April 21st.

The chief spokesperson of the Pentagon, Sean Parnell, said in a statement on X: “There was no classified information in any Signal chat, not matter how many ways they try to write the story. What is true is that the Office of the Secretary of Defense is continuing to become stronger and more efficient in executing President Trump’s agenda.”

Parnell accused media outlets of “enthusiastically taking the grievances of disgruntled former employees as the sole sources for their article.” It comes amid a period of high staff turnover in the Pentagon.

Two of Hegseth’s highest-ranking advisers, Dan Caldwell and Darin Selnick had been dismissed from the Pentagon in connection with an examination of alleged confidential information leaked.

Hegseth’s chief of staff, Joe Kasper left his position at the Pentagon and Colin Carroll, chief of staff to the deputy secretary of defense was fired.