Pete Hegseth Grows Even More Nervous as Damning Leaks Pile Up
The defense secretary—who has drawn ire for his Crusader-level white supremacy, his alcoholism, and his rank misogyny—appears to be losing it as his double Signalgate fiasco just got even worse.
The AP reported Thursday that Hegseth wanted to brag about his war plans on Signal so badly that he installed a 'dirty' or public internet connection in his private Pentagon office. This allows him to send messages from that connection without using his Defense Department IP address, effectively making him invisible as a user. This public connection usage also makes the highest-ranking defense official in the country much more vulnerable to hacking and spying.
Hegseth is supposed to use either the Nonclassified Internet Protocol Router Network, the Secure Internet Protocol Router Network, or the top secret Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System.
Shortly after, The Wall Street Journal published another damning report. Apparently Hegseth has been filled with anxiety and paranoia as turnover in his inner circle increases with each passing scandal. At least five Pentagon employees have been fired or resigned, and Hegseth even wants some of them to be criminally investigated. One staffer described it as a 'revolving door' so bad that they weren't sure who they were actually working with anymore, as Hegseth was at one point without a chief of staff, deputy chief of staff, or senior adviser.
The Journal reports that Hegseth is on edge, suspects his own staffers of leaking information about his activities, and is more than anything scared of being fired by President Trump. And while Hegseth continues to attribute all of his struggles to some media witch hunt, the scandals continue to pile up.
'I didn't believe he had the requisite experience and skills to handle the toughest job in the cabinet before he was confirmed, and I have seen nothing in his performance so far that would disconfirm that judgment,' former Republican Pentagon official Eric Edelman told the Journal.
Hegseth is only four months into his tenure as defense secretary. We'll see how far he makes it from here.
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