Trump Backs Hegseth After Second Group Chat Revelation

By Jennifer Shutt , States Newsroom

Pete Hegseth being sworn in as Secretary of Defense (@VP, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

President Donald Trump said Monday he fully supports the Secretary of Defense, despite The New York Times reporting over the weekend that Pete Hegseth shared details of a bombing campaign in Yemen in a second group chat, this time with his wife and brother.

“Ask the Houthis how much dysfunction there is?” Trump said, referring to the Iranian-backed terrorist organization that operates in Yemen. “There’s none. Pete’s doing a great job. Everybody’s happy with him.”

The New York Times published an article Sunday detailing a second group chat on the encrypted, commercial messaging app Signal, where Hegseth shared information about U.S. military plans.

Hegseth, asked during the White House Easter Egg roll on Monday about the latest New York Times report, didn’t deny that he sent messages in another group chat.

“What a big surprise that a few leakers get fired and suddenly a bunch of hit pieces come out from the same media that peddled the Russia hoax, won’t give back their Pulitzers, they got Pulitzers for a bunch of lies,” Hegseth said. “As they peddle those lies no one ever calls them on it. See, 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.”

The New York Times report was the second time in less than a month that Hegseth’s discussion of military operations on the app came to light.

Someone on a chat meant to comprise only high-level administration officials accidentally included Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, who published an article in late March on the experience.

That group chat included Vice President J.D. Vance, Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz and others. In that chat, Hegseth shared a precise timeline of U.S. bombing of Houthi targets in Yemen.

The Defense Department’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) opened an investigation earlier this month “to determine the extent to which the Secretary of Defense and other Department of Defense (DoD) personnel complied with DoD policies and procedures for the use of a commercial messaging application for official business. Additionally, we will review compliance with classification and records retention requirements.”

The OIG investigation came after U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Mississippi, and ranking member Jack Reed, D-Rhode Island, sent a letter to the acting inspector general asking the independent watchdog agency to look into the issue.

While Trump and most congressional Republicans continued to back Hegseth, Nebraska Republican Representative Don Bacon raised concerns Monday about the operational security risk of communicating on “perceived secure applications” like Signal.

In a social media post that did not name Hegseth or specifically reference Signal, Bacon wrote that “admin officials must assume their phones are closely monitored by China & Russia.”

“They’re top priority targets. Our adversaries can put thousands of people in position just to monitor their phones & to penetrate perceived secure applications on non-secure phones,” Bacon wrote. “I’ve assumed my phones were monitored since I was a Colonel in Iraq & as Commander at Ramstein.”