Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth shared details of a March military airstrike against the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen in another Signal message chat that included his wife and brother, according to a report.
The New York Times first reported the revelation of a second Signal chat surrounding the military strike on Sunday. Those same attack plans had also been shared in another chat with top Trump administration leaders and only came to light last month because Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, was mistakenly added to the group.
The Pentagon pushed back on the story, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told ‘FOX & Friends’ that President Donald Trump stands by Hegseth.
The second chat had the same warplane launch times that were included in the first chat, operational details that, if shared before a strike, could have put pilots in danger, multiple former and current officials have said.
Four people with knowledge of the second chat told the paper that Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer, a former Fox News producer, his brother Phil and his personal lawyer, Tim Parlatore, were included in the chat.
Jennifer Hegseth is not a Defense Department employee, though she has traveled with her husband overseas to meetings with foreign leaders. Phil Hegseth and Parlatore are both employed by the Pentagon. It is unclear why any of them would need to be informed of any upcoming military strikes.
The second chat included 13 people, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. They also confirmed the chat was dubbed ‘Defense ‘ Team Huddle.’
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell dismissed the reporting as ‘another old story—back from the dead.’
‘The Trump-hating media continues to be obsessed with destroying anyone committed to President Trump’s agenda,’ Parnell said. ‘This time, 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.’
Parnell claimed that The Times’ sources were people fired from the Pentagon last week who ‘appear to have a motive to sabotage the Secretary and the President’s agenda.’
Parnell contended that there was no classified information in any Signal chat, a response that Hegseth previously asserted regarding the first chat.
The White House late Sunday similarly dismissed the report as a ‘non-story,’ suggesting that disgruntled former Pentagon employees were spreading false claims.
‘No matter how many times the legacy media tries to resurrect the same non-story, they can’t change the fact that no classified information was shared,’ said Anna Kelly, White House deputy press secretary. ‘Recently-fired ‘leakers’ are continuing to misrepresent the truth to soothe their shattered egos and undermine the President’s agenda, but the administration will continue to hold them accountable.’
Former Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot, who announced he was resigning last week unrelated to the leaks, penned an op-ed published in Politico on Sunday that detailed what he called ‘the Month from Hell’ inside the agency.
‘President Donald Trump has a strong record of holding his top officials to account. Given that, it’s hard to see Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth remaining in his role for much longer,’ Ullyot wrote.
He wrote that ‘the building is in disarray under Hegseth’s leadership’ after the defense secretary ‘followed horrible crisis-communications advice from his new public affairs team’ regarding the first Signal chat.
Ullyot wrote that Trump ‘deserves better from his senior leadership.’
The first chat, set up by national security adviser Mike Waltz, included several Cabinet members. The contents of that chat, which The Atlantic published, shows that Hegseth listed weapons systems and a timeline for the attack on Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen last month.
The revelation of the second chat group brought fresh criticism against Hegseth and President Donald Trump’s wider administration after it failed to take action against the top national security officials who discussed plans for the military strike in Signal.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.