After bombshell group chat report, Hegseth denies what White House already confirmed
Pete Hegseth has now been the secretary of defense for exactly two months, and by any fair measure, the wildly unqualified and scandal-plagued former Fox News personality has struggled in his powerful position. Hegseth, for example, ordered U.S. Cyber Command to halt offensive cyber operations and information operations against Russia. And made indefensible hires. And derailed the Defense Department's efforts to take the climate crisis seriously.
He's also needlessly fired several key officials, including the top lawyers for the Army, Navy and Air Force. And targeted Pentagon-run schools. And shuttered the Office of Net Assessment, the Pentagon's internal think tank for the last half-century that focused on long-term security threats.
But just when it seemed things couldn't get much worse for the amateur Cabinet secretary, Hegseth confronted fresh allegations as part of the scandal that some are calling 'Signalgate.' As The New York Times summarized:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth disclosed war plans in an encrypted group chat that included a journalist two hours before U.S. troops launched attacks against the Houthi militia in Yemen, the White House said on Monday, confirming an account in the magazine The Atlantic. ... It was an extraordinary breach of American national security intelligence.
By now, the basic elements of the controversy are probably familiar. Top members of Donald Trump's national security team chatted in a Signal group over the classified details of a military strike in Yemen, and they accidentally included Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic's editor in chief.
The final paragraph of Goldberg's piece read, 'All along, members of the Signal group were aware of the need for secrecy and operations security. In his text detailing aspects of the forthcoming attack on Houthi targets, Hegseth wrote to the group — which, at the time, included me — 'We are currently clean on OPSEC.''
'OPSEC' referred to 'operations security.' In other words, the defense secretary was certain that he and his colleagues — while chatting on a free platform that has never been approved for chats about national security and classified intelligence — had locked everything down, and created a secure channel of communications.
Of course, we now know that Team Trump was most certainly not 'clean on OPSEC,' Hegseth's embarrassing boast notwithstanding.
Hours after the public learned of this devastating White House debacle, the beleaguered Pentagon chief tried something unexpected: As NBC News reported, Hegseth denied what the Trump administration had already confirmed.
Asked how information about war plans was shared with a journalist and whether the information was classified, Hegseth went after Goldberg, calling him a 'so-called journalist.' Asked why military details were shared on Signal and how he found out a journalist was on the chain, Hegseth said: 'I've heard I was characterized. Nobody was texting war plans, and that's all I have to say about that.'
The White House had already acknowledged — publicly and on the record — that administration officials really did discuss highly sensitive military plans using an unclassified chat application. Hegseth tried to peddle a clumsy denial anyway.
It's possible that the defense secretary will try to parse the meaning of the phrase 'war plans,' but let's note for context that Goldberg reported the messages specifically included 'precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing.'
Indeed, after being shown Hegseth's comments to reporters, The Atlantic editor said plainly that the Pentagon chief's claim was 'a lie.'
Complicating matters further, Hegseth, with his carelessness, also fell short of the very standards he espoused when going after Hillary Clinton over her email server protocols.
In a normal and healthy political environment, the question wouldn't be whether Hegseth needed to resign; it would be when he'd exit the Pentagon. The latest column from the New York Times' David French called on the defense secretary to do exactly that, writing, 'I don't know how Pete Hegseth can look service members in the eye. He's just blown his credibility as a military leader.'
If recent history is any guide, the president won't care, though given the circumstances, Trump's indifference will be impossible to defend.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
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