The highly sensitive military information Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth leaked to his wife and brother in a Signal chat came from the secure messaging system of a general, reported NBC News on Tuesday morning.
“Minutes before U.S. fighter jets took off to begin strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen last month, Army Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, who leads U.S. Central Command, used a secure U.S. government system to send detailed information about the operation to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth,” said the report.
That information included takeoff and strike time, which, if exposed to the enemy, could thwart the attack or endanger the lives of pilots.
According to sources, Hegseth then “used his personal phone to send some of the same information Kurilla had given him to at least two group text chats on the Signal messaging app.” He did so, per the report, even after “an aide warned him in the days beforehand to be careful not to share sensitive information on an insecure communications system before the Yemen strikes, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter.”
This second episode of the so-called “Signalgate” scandal came weeks after the first such incident, in which Hegseth leaked similar military operational plans in a group chat that included a journalist from The Atlantic.
President Donald Trump continues to stand behind Hegseth, with both he and the secretary dismissing the allegations as fake news deceptively leaked by bad-faith actors.
Earlier in the day, before the news broke, Hegseth, who himself used to be a prominent Fox News commentator, sat for an interview with “Fox & Friends” in which he categorically denied wrongdoing and attempted to shift whatever blame he could, earning sharp criticism from commenters on social media.
