Above photo: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared classified details of US plans to bomb Yemen in a group chat with family members.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is facing criticism and calls for his firing after it was reported by the New York Times (NYT) that he shared sensitive military plans of a March attack on Yemen in a Signal chat group that included his wife, brother, and personal lawyer.
According to a source familiar with the matter, speaking with Reuters, the chat included about a dozen people and contained details of the airstrikes’ schedule.
“The revelations of a second Signal chat raise more questions about Hegseth’s use of an unclassified messaging system to share highly sensitive security details,” Reuters wrote.
In response, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell insisted that “the New York Times – and all other Fake News that repeat their garbage – are 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 [US] President [Donald] Trump’s agenda. … We’ve already achieved so much for the American warfighter, and will never back down,” Parnell added in a statement on X.
Controversy surrounding Hegseth erupted last month when Hegseth shared similar details of a separate attack on Yemen in a Signal group chat to which The Atlantic magazine editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was added by mistake. After Hegseth denied the incident, Goldberg released details of the chat in which US officials celebrated the killing of a top missile engineer from the Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) after he entered a residential building with civilians inside.
The incident proved embarrassing for Hegseth and US President Donald Trump’s most senior national security officials. Media attention focused on how Goldberg was added to the chat and Hegseth’s denial of the incident rather than on the Trump officials’ gloating over the killing of innocent people.
Hegseth has also faced scrutiny for allowing his wife, Jennifer, a former Fox News producer, to attend sensitive meetings with foreign military counterparts.
Hegseth’s brother is a Department of Homeland Security liaison to the Pentagon.
The controversy surrounding Hegseth’s sharing of sensitive military information on a second Signal chat comes as the defense secretary has fired several of his top aides for allegedly leaking information to the press.
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly claimed the media has amplified false information from the “disgruntled” leakers to “undermine President Trump’s agenda.”
Democratic lawmakers are demanding that Hegseth be fired, claiming the military details he revealed in the Signal chat endangered the lives of US personnel participating in the bombing of Yemen, which killed 80 Yemenis on 19 April alone.
“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.”
Senator Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran who was injured while participating in the illegal 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, demanded that Hegseth resign in disgrace.
A US official at the Pentagon told Reuters he did not know how Hegseth could keep his job following the latest scandal.
“It’s been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon,” wrote John Ullyot, a former chief Pentagon spokesman and Hegseth’s aide, in an opinion piece for Politico.
