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Hegseth faces renewed scrutiny after Signal chat disclosures

The episode is an uncomfortable one for Trump’s defense secretary, who has vowed to hold senior military leaders accountable for their mistakes.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth outside the Pentagon in February. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth outside the Pentagon in February. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

When Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth arrived in Hawaii on Monday, making his first trip to the Pacific region as Pentagon chief, he brushed aside a journalist’s questions about a blockbuster magazine article exposing how he and other top Trump administration officials had discussed sensitive military planning using an unclassified communication application, a breach of government security norms.

Hegseth denied that he sent “war plans” to colleagues ahead of a U.S. assault on Houthi militants in Yemen this month and instead attacked Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic — who was accidentally included in the sensitive deliberations on Signal — calling him “deceitful and highly discredited,” even though the White House had already confirmed the apparent authenticity of the exchange initiated by national security adviser Michael Waltz.

The episode revived alarm among Democrats and seasoned national security professionals about Hegseth, a former Fox News firebrand who in the months since his narrow confirmation has sought to fulfill a promise to upend the status quo, hold senior defense officials accountable for mistakes and align the Pentagon more closely with President Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda. On Tuesday, it was Hegseth who was singled out by Cabinet colleagues as lawmakers admonished the administration and demanded resignations.

Hegseth, a onetime National Guard soldier who rose to prominence at Fox, has brought an unorthodox, combative style to the Pentagon’s top job, belittling inclusivity initiatives at one of the nation’s most diverse public institutions, attacking critics on social media and disquieting European allies with his pronouncements on Ukraine. Last month, he oversaw the ouster of several senior military officers whom Hegseth had branded unqualified or “woke.”

Like other senior Trump officials, Hegseth has faced judicial pushback in his attempts to implement Trump’s directives to dramatically shrink the administrative state, including his plans to fire probationary Pentagon employees and ban transgender service members.

Trump’s supporters had hailed the administration’s March 15 strikes on the Iranian-backed Houthis, whose assaults on commercial ships off Yemen have dealt a blow to maritime commerce, as evidence of the president’s tougher stance against Tehran. The Houthis also have conducted repeated attacks on U.S. naval and aviation assets, and launched missiles at ally Israel.

It remains unclear whether the U.S. strikes, which officials described as the beginning of a sustained campaign, will be more successful in halting Houthi violence than a similar effort under President Joe Biden.

 

National security adviser Michael Waltz, center, speaks during a meeting in the White House Cabinet Room on Tuesday. (John McDonnell/For The Washington Post)

 

Trump on Tuesday appeared to downplay the Signal episode, describing Goldberg, the Atlantic journalist, as a “sleazebag” and declaring his support for Waltz, whom the president called a “very good man.” Waltz, a former Green Beret and congressman from Florida, said the White House was reviewing “how the heck [Goldberg] got into this room.” Goldberg reported it was Waltz who, seemingly by mistake, added him to the group chat.

But the incident — in which Hegseth detailed not only the weapons U.S. forces intended to use when attacking Yemen but the planned targets and timing as well, according to Goldberg’s account in the Atlantic — is an uncomfortable one for the Pentagon chief as he and his deputies vow to take a hard line on unauthorized disclosures of national security information. Trump did not mention Hegseth in his remarks at the White House.

The Atlantic, in a statement, said that attempts to disparage Goldberg or the magazine “follow an obvious playbook by elected officials and others in power who are hostile to journalists and the First Amendment rights of all Americans.” In an interview Tuesday with MSNBC, Goldberg called Hegseth’s denial of sharing war plans “unserious.”

The imbroglio dominated a previously scheduled hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, with senior intelligence officials in the Trump administration questioned repeatedly over the Signal group chat and what information Hegseth, in particular, shared there. Some Democrats, including the House minority leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (New York), called for him to resign or be fired.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told lawmakers during the hearing that no classified information was transmitted through the group chat, and she declined when pressed by Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) to say whether details of a forthcoming bombing campaign would have been classified.

“I defer to the secretary of defense and the National Security Council on that question,” Gabbard said. She cited a White House review.

Sen. Jack Reed (D-Rhode Island) said Hegseth must be asked if he declassified the information at issue and, if so, when. CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Gabbard, both of whom appeared to have been participants in the Signal group chat, according to the Atlantic, said they were unaware of whether Hegseth declassified the information shared in the chat before the military operation.

“The secretary of defense is the original classification authority, and my understanding is that his comments are that any information that he shared was not classified,” Ratcliffe said.

“But you have no way to verify that?” Reed responded.

“I don’t,” Ratcliffe said.

Reed responded that the incident was “troubling” and a “great lapse in our intelligence.”

Hegseth, in remarks to reporters in Hawaii on Tuesday, did not address whether classified information was discussed on the Signal chat but reiterated his denial from the day before: “Nobody’s texting war plans, and that’s all I have to say about that.”

He sought to highlight the impact of ongoing strike operations against the Houthis. “I know exactly what I’m doing, exactly what we’re directing, and I’m really proud of what we accomplished, the successful missions that night and going forward,” he said.

Former U.S. government officials said that while national security professionals sometimes use Signal and other encrypted platforms to communicate, the apps’ inherent vulnerability to hacking or breach means they should do so only for nonsensitive matters — not for discussing classified or operational topics, whose disclosure could endanger American personnel. The training that government employees receive specifies that even “sensitive but unclassified” information, known as SBU, must not be discussed using commercially available applications like Signal.

They also noted that officials like Hegseth and Waltz typically have dedicated, secure spaces, known as SCIFs, in their homes to review, discuss or share classified information when they are not at the office. When the defense secretary is traveling, he typically has a team of communications personnel who can set up an on-the-go SCIF, including a tent to protect classified information from detection. Even much lower-ranking officials who routinely handle classified information typically have multiple secure laptops or phones at their homes.

“If someone used this example as a teaching moment in an introductory opsec class for people new to the military or government, it would receive laughs as an unbelievable and inconceivable example,” one former senior U.S. official said, using an abbreviation for operational security and speaking on the condition of anonymity to provide a candid assessment.

A 2023 Defense Department memo specifies that agency personnel must not use unclassified systems, whether on government or personal devices, to discuss classified material.

Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Arizona), a former Marine infantryman who like Hegseth served in Iraq, said he probably would have faced court-martial if he had been involved in such a breach while in uniform. Speaking Tuesday on CNN, he described Hegseth’s attacks on Goldberg as a distraction.

“The secretary of defense was unqualified to begin with, and now he’s actually proven himself,” Gallego told the cable news network. “This is a mistake that under any other administration would have ready-made for the secretary of defense to resign. … What does it say to our allies? What does it say to our enemies?”

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Massachusetts) renewed questions about Hegseth’s past, which included admissions that he struggled with alcohol and paid a settlement to a woman who accused him of sexual assault. That history played a prominent role in his divisive confirmation process, in which Democrats raised questions about his qualifications and his character. The Senate’s razor-thin vote to approve his nomination marked only the second time in history that a vice president was required to break a tie and confirm a Cabinet official.

“‘Accountability is back’: I quote Secretary Pete Hegseth,” said Moulton, a Marine Corps veteran. “That was our secretary of defense, on the record, just a couple of months ago.”

Some Republicans also have voiced concern about the Signal incident. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi), who heads the Senate Armed Services Committee, told NewsNation that he planned a bipartisan probe of the matter and would seek access to the messages in the chat.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Nebraska), a retired Air Force general, said Russia and China are almost certainly monitoring those officials’ phones.

“It’s a security violation,” Bacon told CNN, “and there’s no doubt that Russia and China saw this stuff within hours of the actual attacks.”

Alex Horton contributed to this report.

Author: Missy Ryan and Dan Lamothe

Source: The Washington Post

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