Pete Hegseth faces accusations of mishandling classified information tied to Yemen bombings
The Pentagon is at war with its own chief, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, according to White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt.
In an interview with Fox and Friends on Monday, Leavitt affirmed US President Donald Trump’s full confidence in Hegseth’s leadership.
“This is what happens when the entire Pentagon is working against you and working against the monumental change that you are trying to implement,” she stated. Leavitt alleged that those opposed to Hegseth resent his commitment to “standing up for the war-fighter” and are resorting to “leaking and… lying to the mainstream media” to undermine him.
President Trump’s administration has risen to defend Hegseth following a New York Times report published last Sunday, which accused him of sharing sensitive information regarding operations in Yemen with his wife and brother, who lacked security clearance.
The NYT article is tangentially related to the ‘Signalgate’ scandal, which erupted in March after The Atlantic revealed it had accessed an internal chat among Trump administration members discussing attacks on Yemen’s Houthi rebels. This leak was attributed to National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, who reportedly mistakenly saved editor Jeffrey Goldberg’s contact under an incorrect name before sending him an invite.
According to the NYT, Hegseth had another private chat group on the Signal app with a dozen members from his inner circle, including his wife. Hegseth’s spokesman, Sean Parnell, claimed that the Times was attempting to bring the Signalgate story “back from the dead.”
Last week, three Pentagon officials who were suspended amid an internal investigation into alleged leaks released a joint statement denouncing their alleged mistreatment.
Senior adviser Dan Caldwell, deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick, and Colin Carroll, chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, claimed that “unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door.”
In an opinion piece for Politico, former chief Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot argued that Hegseth is “presiding over a strange and baffling purge that will leave him without his two closest advisers of over a decade,” namely Caldwell and Selnick, as well as other key staff members.
