Hegseth Responds After Report Says He Shared Attack Plans in Second Signal Chat

‘Anonymous smears from disgruntled former employees on old news don’t matter,’ Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks during the Central American Security Conference in Panama City, on April 9, 2025. AP Photo/Matias Delacroix

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on April 21 responded to a report that he shared plans for an attack in Yemen in a chat that included his wife and brother.

“What a big surprise that a few leakers get fired and suddenly a bunch of hit pieces come out from the same media that peddled the Russia hoax,” Hegseth told reporters at the White House in Washington.

“This is what the media does. They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees, and then they try to slash and burn people and ruin their reputations. Not going to work with me. Because we’re changing the Defense Department, putting the Pentagon back in the hands of warfighters, and anonymous smears from disgruntled former employees on old news don’t matter. So I’m happy to be here at the Easter Egg Roll with my dad and my kids.”

Citing anonymous sources, The New York Times reported on April 20 that Hegseth in March shared details of forthcoming strikes in Yemen to a Signal group. Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer Hegseth, was in the chat, as were Hegseth’s brother and Hegseth’s lawyer, both of whom work for the Pentagon, according to the report.

The attack plans were said to be similar to those shared in a chat that included Cabinet members and whose existence was disclosed by the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic after administration officials said he was mistakenly added to the chat.

The Pentagon’s inspector general is already investigating Hegseth over the Cabinet chat.

“There was no classified information in any Signal chat,” Sean Parnell, a spokesman for the Pentagon, said on social media platform X.

Parnell said that The New York Times was “enthusiastically taking the grievances of disgruntled former employees as the sole sources for their article” and that the paper “relied only on the words of people who were fired this week and appear to have a motive to sabotage the Secretary and the President’s agenda.”

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement to news outlets: “No matter how many times the legacy media tries to resurrect the same non-story, they can’t change the fact that no classified information was shared. Recently-fired ‘leakers’ are continuing to misrepresent the truth to soothe their shattered egos and undermine the President’s agenda, but the administration will continue to hold them accountable.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Fox News that President Donald Trump “stands strongly behind Secretary Hegseth, who is doing a phenomenal job leading the Pentagon.”

Three Department of Defense officials who had been placed on leave as part of an investigation into unauthorized disclosures indicated on April 18 that they were no longer with the Pentagon.

Dan Caldwell, who was an aide to Hegseth; Darin Selnick, Hegseth’s former deputy chief of staff; and Colin Carroll, the chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, said in a joint statement that “unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered” their character with “baseless attacks” but that they are still supportive of the Trump administration’s mission.

A Pentagon official told The Epoch Times in an email, “At this time, no final senior staffing changes have been decided, and the Secretary will make any future announcements on his own timetable.”

Some Democrats on April 20 called for Hegseth’s resignation or termination after the report that a second Signal chat was published.

“Pete Hegseth’s reckless actions are directly endangering the lives of our brave service members,” Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) wrote on X. “As I said before, and as a member of the House Intelligence Committee, he should be fired and replaced by someone who can properly protect America’s sensitive information.”