‘Second Signal chat’: Pete Hegseth caught up in new scandal involving his wife and brother
Pete Hegseth on Sunday got wrapped up in another scandal involving a second, previously unreported, Signal chat in which sensitive attack plans were shared, this time with his wife and his brother, according to a news report.
Hegseth was recently under fire for sharing terrorist attack plans in an unsecured chat on the Signal app. While Hegseth didn’t create that chat group, he did create a second one, where the members included his wife and brother, and shared almost identical attack plans in that group, according to the New York Times’ reporting Sunday.
“The defense secretary sent sensitive information about strikes in Yemen to an encrypted group chat that included his wife and brother, people familiar with the matter said,” the report states.
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According to the report, “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared detailed information about forthcoming strikes in Yemen on March 15 in a private Signal group chat that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer, according to four people with knowledge of the chat.”
“Some of those people said that the information Mr. Hegseth shared on the Signal chat included the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets targeting the Houthis in Yemen — essentially the same attack plans that he shared on a separate Signal chat the same day that mistakenly included the editor of The Atlantic,” the report states. “Mr. Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer, a former Fox News producer, is not a Defense Department employee, but she has traveled with him overseas and drawn criticism for accompanying her husband to sensitive meetings with foreign leaders.”
The report goes on to say that, “The previously unreported existence of a second Signal chat in which Mr. Hegseth shared highly sensitive military information is the latest in a series of developments that have put his management and judgment under scrutiny.”