Hegseth team gets new jolt with more allegations involving Signal app

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and his embattled, shrinking coterie of senior advisers faced new allegations of malfeasance Sunday, with a report alleging that Hegseth shared sensitive, advance information about a bombing campaign in Yemen with a group that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer.

The operational details were transmitted March 15 through Signal, marking at least the second usage of the commercial messaging application to share sensitive information about forthcoming airstrikes, the New York Times reported.

It follows a report by the Atlantic magazine last month that detailed how senior Trump appointees, including Vice President JD Vance, White House national security adviser Michael Waltz and Hegseth had deliberated about the same strikes on Signal — an encrypted but unclassified network — after Waltz accidentally included the editor in chief of the magazine in the private group. Hegseth shared operational details there, too.

The new allegations, which The Washington Post could not immediately verify, will renew questions about Hegseth’s judgment, discretion and adherence to long-held policies for how classified information and other sensitive Defense Department information should be handled.

In the aftermath of the first error coming to light, President Donald Trump supported Hegseth, but the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sens. Roger Wicker (Mississippi) and Jack Reed (Rhode Island), requested that the Defense Department inspector general’s office scrutinize the situation. A review is underway.

The Times reported that in addition to Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer, and brother, Phil, others on the chat included Hegseth’s chief of staff, Joe Kasper; his spokesman, Sean Parnell; his personal lawyer and adviser, Tim Parlatore; and two senior aides, Darin Selnick and Dan Caldwell.

Parlatore, a military defense attorney, had rejoined the Navy Reserve after 12 years out of uniform earlier in March, while Selnick and Caldwell were fired last week, accused of leaking information. Jennifer Hegseth is not a Defense Department employee but has taken an unusually active role for a spouse in Pentagon affairs, appearing at some official meetings.

Phil Hegseth is a Department of Homeland Security appointee, but has been serving as a liaison at the Pentagon and recently traveled with Hegseth on a trip to the Pacific region.

Hegseth castigated the news media and former employees Monday morning, suggesting that those ousted from their jobs recently were responsible for the New York Times story.

“What a 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,” he said, referring to a common allegation by Trump and his supporters that news stories about Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election, and authorities’ suspicion of a conspiracy with the Trump campaign, were false.

Hegseth, speaking at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, suggested that Sunday’s article was part of a coordinated effort to damage his reputation and called the reporting underpinning it “anonymous smears.” He pointed to his children and said: “This is what we’re doing it for. These kids right here. This is why we’re fighting the fake news media. This is why we’re fighting slash-and-burn Democrats. This is why we’re fighting hoaxsters.”

He added that he had talked to Trump and they are “on the same page all the way.”

Trump told reporters he thinks Hegseth is “doing a great job” shortly after his press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said on TV that the president “stands strongly behind” his defense secretary. Leavitt alleged that the “entire Pentagon” is working against Hegseth and the “monumental change” he wants to bring.

When asked about Hegseth’s job performance, Trump quipped, “ask the Houthis,” referring to the Iran-backed group that the U.S. military has targeted in Yemen.

Parnell, in a statement released late Sunday, downplayed the significance of the allegations, saying it was “another day, another old story — back from the dead.” He accused the “Trump-hating media” of working to destroy “anyone committed to President Trump’s agenda.”

Parnell, who has not responded to numerous requests for comment on recent personnel moves, alleged that stories about the Signal issue were relying on “disgruntled former employees as the sole sources,” though that was not certain, and said that no classified information appeared “in any Signal chat no matter how many times” journalists “try to write the story.” Numerous former defense officials have said that the operational details that Hegseth shared ahead of the attacks on Yemen would typically be restricted to a special, compartmented channel with a code word and tightly limited access.

Parnell also claimed that Hegseth’s office, despite several vacancies, “is continuing to become stronger and more efficient in executing President Trump’s agenda.”

Kasper did not respond to requests for comment. Caldwell, Parlatore and Selnick declined to comment.

Democrats quickly pounced on the issue. Reed said in a statement that if the Times’s reporting is true, it marks “another troubling example of Secretary Hegseth’s reckless disregard for the laws and protocols that every other military servicemember is required to follow.”

“He must immediately explain why he reportedly texted classified information that could endanger American servicemembers’ lives on a commercial app that included his wife, brother, and personal lawyer,” Reed said. “I urge the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General to include this latest incident in its ongoing investigation of Mr. Hegseth’s mishandling of classified information.”

Separately, on Sunday, Politico published an opinion piece by a former Hegseth spokesman, John Ullyot, that questioned the defense secretary’s ability to do the job. Ullyot, who was removed from his position last month after weeks of colleagues questioning his judgment, backed a joint statement released Saturday by Caldwell, Selnick and a third fired political appointee, Colin Carroll, that questioned the accuracy of statements Hegseth’s team has made against them.

“It’s been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon,” Ullyot wrote. “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 assessed that there has been “near collapse inside the Pentagon’s top ranks” and said Kasper also has been removed from his position. Defense officials have declined to confirm that personnel change. Meanwhile, Ullyot added, while the Pentagon said it would conduct polygraph tests of those under scrutiny for allegedly leaking information, “not one of the three has been given a lie-detector test.”

Ullyot also shared a dim view of Hegseth’s handling of the initial Signal uproar, assessing that he “followed horrible crisis-communications advice from his new public affairs team, who somehow convinced him to try to debunk the reporting through a vague, Clinton-esque non-denial denial that ‘nobody was texting war plans.’”

Doing so, Ullyot wrote, violated public affairs wisdom to deal with bad news right away. He also accused Hegseth’s team of spreading “flat-out, easily debunked falsehoods anonymously” about their now-departed colleagues.

Should the defense secretary be fired, Ullyot added, “many in the secretary’s own inner circle will applaud quietly.”

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Patrick Svitek contributed to this report.