Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth just can’t keep confidential military information out of the group chat, because the highest-ranking member in Trump’s administration to have questionable tattoos, has apparently done it again.
That’s right, Hegseth, the man who’s responsible for keeping American secrets, was somehow in a group chat with an editor from the Atlantic and was spilling all the war tea. Now, he has reportedly “shared detailed plans about a military operation against the Houthis in Yemen on a second Signal group chat, this one on his personal phone and including his wife, lawyer and brother, three people familiar with the chat,” CNN reports.
According to the news site, Hegseth set up the group chat during his disastrous confirmation hearing and continued using it after he’d been confirmed. Apparently, there were more than a dozen people in the Signal chat group, which is the same text messaging app that Hegseth used when he shared Yemen attack plans.
And all of this couldn’t have happened at a worse time for Hegseth, who is reportedly in way over his head as several of his closest advisers think he’s an idiot. OK, fine. No one called him an idiot, but they are beginning to question his judgment, which makes sense because he’s got some of the worst tattoos in American history.
“It’s been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon. From leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings, the dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president — who deserves better from his senior leadership,” Hegseth’s former press secretary John Ullyot told CNN.
Just like the first Signal chat that exposed a military attack on a civilian, the second chat was also about strikes against the Houthis in Yemen.
“Hegseth’s brother Phil, as well as his lawyer Tim Parlatore, both have jobs at the Department of Defense. But his wife, Jennifer, does not, despite Hegseth regularly including her during the beginning of his tenure in meetings with foreign leaders,” CNN reports.
Now why is Hegseth’s wife involved in military secrets? Why is he sharing military secrets in a group chat that his wife is in? The completely inept Trump cabinet just can’t stop being inept. There have been days of reported fuss-fights between staff after Hegseth fired senior adviser Dan Caldwell, deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick, and Colin Carroll, who served as chief of staff to the deputy secretary of defense. He also reassigned his chief of staff, Joe Kasper.
A spokesperson for the Pentagon told CNN that the recent chaos under Hegseth’s tenure resulted from a leak investigation. But sources told the news station that the last five weeks have been chaotic, citing the group chat fiasco and infighting between Kasper, Caldwell, Selnick and Carroll.
From CNN:
A series of leaks about military planning for the Panama Canal and the Middle East, about a possible consolidation of the combatant commands, and about a classified China briefing for Elon Musk at the Pentagon had deeply rattled Hegseth by mid-March, sources told CNN. So he and Kasper launched a leak probe, complete with polygraph tests.
Following the press reports — including one in The New York Times about the questionable success of a massive military campaign against the Houthis — Hegseth began to lash out and grew suspicious that senior military officials, as well as some of his closest advisers, were leaking to undermine him, the sources added.
At one point, Hegseth even demanded an FBI probe into the leaks — which some of his aides advised against, sources said. There was already an active inspector general investigation focusing on Hegseth, and bringing in the FBI might only invite more scrutiny, those aides advised.
Hegseth has also grown increasingly concerned about the inspector general investigation, the sources said. Caldwell, Selnick and Carroll expect to be interviewed as part of that probe, the sources added.
In a joint statement released Saturday, the trio most likely to start a law firm, Caldwell, Selnick and Carroll, all noted that they were “incredibly disappointed by the manner in which our service at the Department of Defense ended.” They also denied leaking information.
“Unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door. All three of us served our country honorably in uniform — for two of us, this included deployments to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And, based on our collective service, we understand the importance of information security and worked every day to protect it,” they wrote, CNN reports.
“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.”
It’s clear that Hegseth’s judgment is trash, and who gets added to the group chat is as random as who gets picked for sneaker releases. If this administration had any sense, they would demand Hegseth’s resignation, but don’t wait on it, considering Trump knew he was highly underqualified and still wanted him anyway.
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