Fresh off the heels of Signalgate, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is at it again, having shared details about a military operation against the Houthis in Yemen on a Signal group chat including his wife, lawyer and brother.
While three people confirmed the news to CNN, they noted some of his closest advisors have become concerned with his judgment, including Hegseth’s former press secretary, John Ullyot.
Hegseth also fired three senior officials, who reportedly were also concerned, including his top adviser Dan Caldwell, deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick, and chief of staff to the deputy secretary of defense, Colin Carroll, in mid-April.
“It’s been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon,” Ullyot said in a statement CNN acquired. “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.”
While Hegseth came under fire in March for using Signal to talk with cabinet officials about military plans — and accidentally included The Atlantic’s editor in chief in the chat — he continued using it to communicate, regardless of his initial blunder being currently investigated by the Defense Department’s acting inspector general.
While Hegseth’s brother and lawyer have jobs at the Department of Defense, his wife does not. CNN noted it’s uncertain if everyone in the second Signal chat had security clearance.
After a series of leaks, Hegseth reportedly became suspicious information was being released by senior military officials and some of the advisors closest to him in an effort to undermine him, which led to him to go on a mass firing spree.
Caldwell, Selnick and Carroll denied leaking any information on April 19, sharing they were “incredibly disappointed by the manner in which our service at the Department of Defense ended.”
“Unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door,” they continued. “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. 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.”
For his part, Ullyot denied their foreigners had anything to do with leaking sensitive information.
“While the Department said that it would conduct polygraph tests as part of the probe, not one of three has been given a lie detector test,” he shared. “In fact, at least one of the three has told former colleagues straight out that investigators advised him he was about to be cleared officially of any wrongdoing. Unfortunately, Hegseth’s team has developed a habit of spreading flat-out, easily debunked falsehoods anonymously about their colleagues on their way out the door.”
Sources noted to CNN Hegseth “has grown increasingly concerned” about the inspector general looking into his usage of Signal and that Caldwell, Selnick and Carroll expect they will be interviewed as the controversial situation is looked into.
Donald Trump likely won’t take kindly to being questioned about this second usage of Signal, as OK! reported he lashed out at a reporter for asking about Signalgate in early April.
During a press conference aboard Air Force One on April 3, one reporter asked, “On Pete Hegseth and this [inspector general] investigation, do you want to weigh in on that?”
When Trump asked him for more information, the reporter explained, “There’s an I.G. investigation into the secretary of defense’s use of the Signal app.”
Trump was less than thrilled by the question and scolded the reporter, telling him, “Don’t bring that up again.”