Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is downplaying reports that he shared military information over the encrypted messaging app Signal in a second group chat.
Speaking outside the White House’s annual Easter Egg Roll, Hegseth was defiant in responding to reporting that he allegedly shared information about upcoming strikes on the Houthis in Yemen in two Signal chats.
“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,” Hegseth said, in reference to false claims of collusion between President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and the Russians.
“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 first reported Sunday that Hegseth shared information about upcoming Houthi strikes in a Signal group chat with his brother, wife, and personal lawyer, among others, citing four people with knowledge of the chat. Hegseth’s brother and lawyer are Pentagon employees, but his wife Jennifer, a former Fox News producer, is not. Other news outlets subsequently confirmed the Times‘s report, making it the latest Signal scandal for Hegseth.
This time around, Hegseth created the group chat in January for his wife and approximately a dozen other personal and professional connections prior to his confirmation. The chat did not include any cabinet officials and mostly existed for Hegseth to discuss administrative information.
“Another day, another old story—back from the dead. The Trump-hating media continues to be obsessed with destroying anyone committed to President Trump’s agenda,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement posted on X.
“There was no classified information in any Signal chat, no 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.”
The Times responded to Parnell’s statement Monday afternoon and defended the accuracy of its reporting.
“The Pentagon has not denied the existence of the chat, and its assertion that there was no classified information shared in any chat is beside the point when it comes to our story, which did not characterize the information as classified,” a spokesperson for the Times said in a statement shared on social media.
The first Signal chat scandal came to light in March when the Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg revealed that National Security Advisor Mike Waltz accidentally added him to a group full of senior administration officials. Goldberg disclosed the group’s existence in a bombshell story last month summarizing conversations about the imminent Houthi strikes and leaving out sensitive military information.
The White House confirmed the Signal chat’s authenticity, but otherwise dismissed Goldberg’s story. After realizing the chat was real when the Houthi strikes landed, Goldberg removed himself from the group chat and published his stories.
President Trump, Hegseth, and other top officials downplayed the Signal chat scandal because of Goldberg’s history of reporting negative stories about Trump that were disputed by other parties involved.
Goldberg released the sensitive national-security messages sent on Signal to follow up his initial story, and the messages appeared to show Hegseth shared precise details about the pending strikes right before they were launched as planned. Once Goldberg released the messages, Hegseth criticized his characterization and asserted that no classified information was transmitted.
Trump declined to fire Waltz over the Signal chat incident despite an avalanche of scrutiny. Waltz claimed he did not know how Goldberg’s number ended up in his phone and said he never talked to the longtime journalist.
The Pentagon’s internal watchdog launched an “evaluation” of the Signal cheat leak earlier this month at the request of Senators Roger Wicker (R., Miss.) and Jack Reed (D., R.I.), chairman and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The Pentagon recently dismissed three of Hegseth’s top advisors after they were placed on administrative leave amid an internal investigation into leaks. The advisers, Dan Caldwell, Colin Carroll, and Darin Selnick, said in a joint statement that they were being smeared out the door by anonymous officials.
“We are incredibly disappointed by the manner in which our service at the Department of Defense ended. Unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door,” the officials said in a statement shared on Caldwell’s X account.
“At this time, we still have not been told what exactly we were investigated for, if there is still an active investigation, or if there was even a real investigation of ‘leaks’ to begin with.”
Additionally, former chief Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot wrote a blistering op-ed in Politico Sunday accusing Hegseth’s team of spreading falsehoods about the recently departed senior advisers. He painted a broader picture of chaos and dysfunction at the Pentagon under Hegseth’s leadership. A supporter of Hegseth, Ullyot detailed some of the scandals Hegseth has endured during his short tenure leading the Department of Defense and predicted more firings would come in short order.