Pete Hegseth: US defense minister comments on chat scandal

According to the White House, US President Donald Trump is firmly behind Defense Minister Pete Hegseth, even after the latest reports on another signal group chat. According to media reports, the minister is said to have shared military plans in a group chat via the Signal app with his wife and other people.

The “New York Times”, citing several people familiar with the matter, reported that the politician had spread detailed information about attacks in Yemen in mid -March. The wife therefore does not work in the Ministry of Defense.

The spokeswoman for the White House Karoline Leavitt said in a first reaction in Foxnews: “The President is firmly behind Minister Hegseth, who does a phenomenal work at the head of the pentagon.” She accused dissatisfied employees of the Ministry of wanting to bring Hegseth into discredits and lie to the traditional media.

“This happens when the entire Pentagon works against one and against the monumental change that you try to implement,” said Leavitt. She added that no military secrets had been spread. The “New York Times” had reported that the flight times of F/A-18 fight jets were shared in use against the Huthi militia in Yemen.

Minister Hegseth said in a first reaction at an Easter for families in the garden of the White House, the report was based on information from angered former employees who tried to “settle down people and ruin their reputation. That doesn’t work for me.”

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell had previously posted on X that “the trump-hate media” were still obsessed from destroying everyone who is committed to the agenda of US President Donald Trump. Parnell claimed that the reports about the second group chat were based on complaints from former employees as the only source. Most recently, according to the media, there had been a number of layoffs of leading employees in the Pentagon.

Hegseth sees itself exposed to new criticism through the media reports and the pressure on him increases. The minority leader of the Democrats in the US Senate, Chuck Schumer, wrote on X: “Pete Hegseth must be fired.” Just weeks ago, an affair about a group-rank-high government representative, including Hegseth, made very high waves.

This first security breakdown in a chat from US government officials about attacks on the pro-Iranian Huthi-Miliz in Yemen was known in March after a journalist reported on it. The editor-in-chief of the US magazine “The Atlantic”, Jeffrey Goldberg, was apparently accidentally invited to the chat on signal. The national security advisor Mike Waltz initiated this.

In the chat group, US government members had exchanged, including Hegseth and Waltz, but also Foreign Minister Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance. The journalist Goldberg made the incident public in an article, later his magazine published screenshots of the chats. These contain numerous details, such as precise attack times on March 15 and the aircraft used.

Unlike that chat, Hegseth’s second group chat has now been created, the “New York Times” reported. The newspaper refers to “four people” who knew about this conversation. According to the newspaper, these are Hegseth’s wife, a journalist and former employee of the broadcaster Fox News, who is not employed in the Pentagon. In addition, the brother and the lawyer of the minister who work in the ministry are in it.

According to the newspaper, Hegseth shared the exact airplans of the US aircraft in the second group chat, which should attack the goals of the Pro-Iranian Huthi militia in Yemen. It was “essentially the same attack plans” that the Pentagon boss “had shared on the same day about another signal group”. In January, around a dozen members from his personal and professional environment are said to have been part of the Signal Group-that is said to have been a defense minister before Hegseth’s swearing in. He is said to have used the chat from his private phone.

The first security breakdown from March made publicly made by journalist Goldberg had hit Washington and internationally high waves. The opposition Democrats called for Hegseth’s resignation. They accuse the government that the accidental disclosure of the plans could have endangered the life of US soldiers. The national security advisor Waltz took responsibility for the incident at the end of March.

Representatives of the Trump government, however, deny that secret information had been exchanged in the chat course. US President Donald Trump demonstratively introduced himself behind his Defense Minister and accused critics of a “witch hunt”. Vice President Vance excluded layoffs in connection with the chat scandal.

Shortly after the incident became known, the Pentagon department head Hegseth targeted. Pentagon General Inspector Steven Stebbins announced an internal investigation into the role of Hegseth in the so-called chat group affair at the beginning of April. According to Stebbin, the investigation goes back to a corresponding application by the two leading members of the U.S. Senate forces committee, a Republican and a Democrat.