Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared sensitive information about airstrikes on Yemen on the Signal app within minutes of receiving it from a general on a secure system used by the government, according to multiple reports. NBC News, citing "three US officials with direct knowledge of the exchanges," reports that Army Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, head of Central Command, sent Hegseth detailed information on strikes on Houthi rebels last month minutes before planes took off. Hegseth then used his personal phone to share information from the secure channel in two Signal group chats, one of which included his wife, his brother, and his personal lawyer, among others, the sources say.
A source tells the AP that the information from the secure military channel shared in the second chat was the same information shared in the chat that included top administration officials—and, unknown to Hegseth and other participants, Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg. NBC notes that the information could have jeopardized the lives of US personnel if it fell into the wrong hands, but Kurilla was "doing exactly what he was supposed to: providing Hegseth ... with information he needed to know and using a system specifically designed to safely transmit sensitive and classified information."
In a Tuesday appearance on Fox & Friends, which he used to co-host on weekends, Hegseth said people "pushed out" of the Pentagon are "attempting to leak and sabotage the president's agenda," the Independent reports. "What was shared over Signal then and now, however you characterize it, was informal, unclassified coordinations, for media coordinations and other things," he said.
- Analysts, however, say the details were almost certainly classified and the second chat is of particular concern, NPR reports. "Here he's knowingly using an insecure communication device and he's knowingly giving classified information to people who are not security clearance holders so it's really more than a spill," says former CIA officer Kevin Carroll, who served in the Department of Homeland Security during President Trump's first term. "It really gets more to the sort of willfulness that is typically prosecuted by the Department of Justice."
- White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that Trump "stands strongly behind Secretary Hegseth in the change that he is bringing to the Pentagon," NBC News reports. On Monday, speaking at the White House Easter Egg Roll, Trump said Hegseth is "doing a great job." Hegseth, who was at the same event, slammed the media as "hoaxsters."
(More
Pete Hegseth stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
