WASHINGTON, April 21 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Monday that he stood behind U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, after reports that he shared details of a March attack on Yemen’s Houthis in a message group that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer.
The revelations that Hegseth used the unclassified messaging system Signal to share highly sensitive security details for the second time come at an uncertain moment for him and the Pentagon, where senior officials were ousted last week as part of an internal leak investigation.
“Pete’s doing a great job. Everybody’s happy with him,” Trump said. Asked if he remained confident in Hegseth, Trump said: “Oh totally.”
“Ask the Houthis how he’s doing,” Trump said. The U.S. military, under Trump, has ramped up its bombing campaign against the Iran-backed Houthi group.
In the second chat, Hegseth shared details of the attack similar to those revealed last month by The Atlantic magazine after its editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was included in a separate chat on the Signal app by mistake, Reuters reported on Sunday.
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt denied a National Public Radio report that the Trump administration had begun searching for a new defense secretary.
The second Signal chat included about a dozen people and was created during Hegseth’s confirmation process to discuss administrative issues rather than detailed military planning. Among them was Hegseth’s brother, who is a Department of Homeland Security liaison to the Pentagon.
Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer, a former Fox News producer, has attended sensitive meetings with foreign military counterparts, according to images the Pentagon has publicly posted.
A person familiar with the matter told Reuters that Hegseth had been counseled against sharing information on unsecure systems like Signal before he did so last month.
The Pentagon Inspector General’s office announced earlier this month that it was opening a probe into Hegseth’s use of the unclassified commercial texting application to coordinate on the highly sensitive March 15 launch of U.S. strikes on Houthis.
REPUBLICANS LARGELY SILENT
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Monday, Hegseth slammed the media and former employees.
“I have spoken to the president, and we are going to continue fighting on the same page all the way,” Hegseth said.
Hegseth narrowly secured enough votes to become defense secretary, after fierce opposition from Democrats and even some Republicans.
A White House official said that abandoning Hegseth would play into the hands of Democrats who criticized him during his Senate confirmation battle.
At least nine Senate Democrats have called on Hegseth to resign since the latest news, saying the existence of a second Signal chat showed that he was not fit for the job.
Republican lawmakers, who control both the Senate and House of Representatives, have largely been silent.
But Republican Congressman Don Bacon, in an interview with Politico, raised questions about Hegseth’s experience and said that such a Signal chat would be unacceptable.
Trump removed a number of defense secretaries during his first administration over policy differences or questions about their loyalty.
Hegseth, however, is seen as being in lock step with Trump. He has deployed thousands of troops to the border with Mexico, called on Europe to spend more on its defenses and taken aim at diversity in the military.
The latest revelation, which was first reported by the New York Times, comes days after Dan Caldwell, one of Hegseth’s leading advisers, was escorted from the Pentagon after being identified during an investigation into leaks at the Department of Defense.
Caldwell played a critical role for Hegseth and was named as the Pentagon’s point person by the secretary in the first Signal chat.
“We are incredibly disappointed by the manner in which our service at the Department of Defense ended,” Caldwell posted on X on Saturday. “Unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door.”
Following Caldwell’s departure, less-senior officials Darin Selnick, who recently became Hegseth’s deputy chief of staff, and Colin Carroll, who was chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg, were put on administrative leave and fired on Friday.
Reporting by Steve Holland,Idrees Ali, Phil Stewart, Jarrett Renshaw, Doina Chiacu and Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Alistair Bell and Don Durfee
