Chat Leaks Rock Pentagon, Trump Responds After Ex-Official's "Meltdown" Op-Ed
US President Donald Trump defended his Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, following reports of the Pentagon chief disclosing sensitive military information in a second Signal chatroom with his family members and other staffers. Echoing the President's remarks, the White House also rallied behind Hegseth and tried to divert attention away from the national security implications of the alleged leak.
Trump's comments came after a former top Pentagon spokesperson slammed the US's top military official's leadership of the Department of Defence.
Trump said Hegseth was "doing a great job" despite what appear to be attacks from "disgruntled employees".
"I guess it sounds like disgruntled employees...You know, he was put there to get rid of a lot of bad people, and that's what he's doing. So you don't always have friends when you do that," Trump told reporters at the annual Easter egg roll event at the White House on Monday.
"Ask the Houthis much dysfunction there is," he added, referring to the military's attacks on Houthi militants in Yemen.
Echoing Trump's remarks, the White House also tried to frame the controversy as a bureaucratic battle between Hegseth and the disgruntled Pentagon workforce.
"This is what happens when the entire Pentagon is working against you and working against the monumental change that you are trying to implement," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
Without going as far as denying the existence of a second Signal chat, Hegseth himself blamed "disgruntled former employees" and the media for trying to ruin his reputation.
"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...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," Hegseth said at the same event.
This came after John Ullyot, who resigned last week after serving briefly as Pentagon spokesman, said in an opinion piece published by Politico on Sunday that the Defence Department has been overwhelmed by "staff drama" in the initial months of the second Trump administration.
Calling the situation a "full-blown meltdown", Ullyot wrote that it could cost Hegseth his job as Defence Secretary.
"It's been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon. From leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings, the dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president, who deserves better from his senior leadership," Ullyot wrote.
Forty-four-year-old former Fox News host and National Guard officer, Hegseth, has a combat record but limited management experience. The Pentagon chief was already under scrutiny for sharing confidential information in a Signal chat group detailing an imminent attack against the Houthis. The group included top Trump administration officials as well as The Atlantic journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, who was mistakenly added to the group chat.
Now, reports have emerged about Hegseth sharing similar information about the pending strikes in Yemen on a chat group that included his wife and brother.
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