The president is playing a dangerous game with the country’s security.
Of course Pete Hegseth had other Signal chats.
When Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg revealed last month that top Trump administration officials, including the defense secretary, were using the messaging platform to discuss highly sensitive information, such as specific war plans, the fact that they had added a journalist somewhat overshadowed the chat’s existence.
The casual tone in the messages that Goldberg received, however, implied that circulating classified details in this way was not surprising or unusual to the people involved. Indeed, The New York Times now reports that Hegseth also shared sensitive attack details in a second Signal chat, this one including his brother, a Pentagon employee surely hired on merit alone, something that Hegseth cares deeply about; his personal lawyer, also on the Pentagon payroll; and his current wife, a former Fox News producer.
As the Times dryly noted, “It is not clear why either would need to know about upcoming military strikes aimed at the Houthis in Yemen.” Aides had warned Hegseth not to have sensitive discussions on Signal or on his personal phone, according to the Times’ reporting. At this point, does anyone believe that the two Signal chats we know about are the only Signal chats?
The latest article, like Goldberg’s, raises questions about whether highly classified information is really safe. Members of the military expressed anger after the first leak, noting that breaches could put them in danger, and that if they had handled such material the same way, they would have received serious discipline.
The broader takeaway is about how dysfunctional the Pentagon already is, just three months into the Trump administration. One of the most quietly stunning phrases of the latest scoop could easily escape notice: “according to four people with knowledge of the chat.” The fact that four separate people were willing to speak about this to the Trump-detested New York Times is an indication of dysfunction, just as the constant stream of leaks from within the first Trump White House laid bare the internecine warfare there.
Only last week, three top aides to Hegseth were placed on leave and then fired amid an investigation into other alleged leaks.
