Hegseth’s 2nd Signal chat with details of Yemen strike! NYT report

Defense secretary Pete Hegseth created another Signal messaging chat that included his wife and brother, where he shared similar details of a March military airstrike against Yemen’s Houthi militants that were sent in another chain with top Trump administration leaders, the New York Times reported.

A person familiar with the contents and those who received the messages, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, confirmed the second chat to the Associated Press.

The second chat on Signal — which is a commercially available app not authorised to be used to communicate sensitive or classified national defence information — included 13 people, the person said. They also confirmed the chat was dubbed ‘Defense’ Team Huddle’.

The New York Times reported that the group included Hegseth’s wife Jennifer, who is a former Fox News producer, and his brother Phil Hegseth, who was hired at the Pentagon as a department of homeland security liaison and senior adviser. Both have travelled with the defence secretary and attended high-level meetings.

The revelation of the additional chat group brought fresh criticism against Hegseth and President Donald Trump’s wider administration after it has failed to take action so far against the top national security officials who discussed plans for the military strike in Signal.

“The details keep coming out. We keep learning how Pete Hegseth put lives at risk. But Trump is still too weak to fire him,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer posted on X. “Pete Hegseth must be fired.”

The first chat, set up by national security adviser Mike Waltz, included a number of Cabinet members and came to light because Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, was added to the group.

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 in March.

The White House, the National Security Council and a Pentagon spokesperson did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment about the additional chat group.

Hegseth has previously contended that no classified information or war plans were shared in the chat with the journalist.

The NYT reported on Sunday, 20 April, that the second chat had the same warplane launch times that the first chat included. Multiple former and current officials have said sharing those operational details before a strike would have certainly been classified and their release could have put pilots in danger.

Hegseth’s use of Signal and the sharing of such plans are under investigation by the defence department’s acting inspector general. It came at the request of the leadership of the Senate Armed Services Committee — Republican chairman Roger Wicker of Mississippi and ranking Democratic member Jack Reed of Rhode Island.

The new revelations come amid further turmoil at the Pentagon. Four officials in Hegseth’s inner circle departed last week, as the Pentagon began a widespread investigation for information leaks.

Dan Caldwell, a Hegseth aide; Colin Carroll, chief of staff to deputy defence secretary Stephen Feinberg; and Darin Selnick, Hegseth’s deputy chief of staff, were escorted out of the Pentagon.

While the three initially had been placed on leave pending the investigation, a joint statement shared by Caldwell on X on Saturday, 19 April, said the three “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.”

The upheaval comes less than 100 days into the Trump administration, where the Pentagon has found itself frequently at the epicentre of controversial moves — from firings of senior military and civilian staff to broad edicts to purge content that promoted diversity, equity and inclusion. That led to images or other online content of heroes like the Tuskegee Airmen and Jackie Robinson being temporarily removed from the military’s websites, causing public uproar.

In March, Hegseth had announced that the Pentagon’s intelligence and law enforcement arms were investigating what it says are leaks of national security information following reports that Elon Musk was set to receive a classified briefing on potential war plans with China.

In the announcement by Hegseth’s chief of staff Joe Kasper, the office warned that defense department personnel could face polygraphs in the probe.

The departures also follow the firings of senior military officers, including Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. CQ Brown; chief of naval operations Lisa Franchetti; National Security Agency and US Cyber Command director Gen. Tim Haugh; and vice admiral Shoshana Chatfield, the US military representative to the NATO Military Committee.