According to the White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt, the Pentagon is at war with its own boss, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. In an interview with Fox and Friends, Leavitt affirmed on Monday President Donald Trump’s full confidence in Hegseth’s leadership. Leavitt claimed that those who are against Hegseth are taking umbrage with his commitment to the war on terror and resorting to “leaks and lies in the mainstream media” to undermine him.
The Trump administration has defended Hegseth after a report by the New York Times on Sunday accused him of sharing sensitive information about operations in Yemen, which did not have security clearance, with his wife and brother. The New York Times article is closely related to the “SignalGate” scandal that made the rounds in March. Previously, a journalist from The Atlantic reported that he had access to an internal chat between members of the Trump administration, in which attacks on the Huthis in Yemen were discussed. The “leak” was attributed to National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who reportedly accidentally saved the journalist Jeffrey Goldberg’s contact under a wrong name before inviting him.
The New York Times now reported that Hegseth used a private chat group on the Signal app with a dozen members of his inner circle, including his wife. Hegseth’s spokesperson Sean Parnell claimed that the New York Times is trying to “resurrect the SignalGate story from the dead.”
Last week, three Pentagon officials who were suspended as part of an internal investigation into alleged leaks published a joint statement condemning their “misreatment.” The leading advisor Dan Caldwell, the deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick and Colin Carroll, chief of staff to the undersecretary of defense Stephen Feinberg, claimed that “unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with unfounded attacks, as we were put on the street.”
In a commentary for Politico, former Pentagon chief spokesperson John Ullyot argued that Hegseth is “facing a strange and mysterious purge that has left him without his two closest aides after more than a decade” namely Caldwell and Selnick, as well as other important staff members.