Hegseth shared attack plans in Signal chat including wife, brother, personal lawyer: NYT

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth allegedly shared attack plans in a Signal chat including his wife, brother and personal lawyer, The New York Times reported Sunday, citing four people familiar with the conversation.

In mid-March, the Pentagon leader disclosed information in the chat about upcoming strikes in Yemen including the flight schedules of military aircraft targeting Houthis, sources told the Times.

Last month, it was revealed that top Trump administration officials had shared similar sensitive military information via a separate Signal chat that included The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg. In a report that rocked Washington, Goldberg detailed how top members of the Trump administration debated and detailed planned attacks on Houthis in Yemen in the chat.

The administration has acknowledged the chat including Goldberg was legitimate, but has pushed back on assertions that any information shared in it was classified.

The “Defense | Team Huddle” chat that included Hegseth’s wife, brother and personal lawyer also included others involved with the Defense secretary’s life in professional and personal ways prior to his confirmation, sources told the Times. It did not include other Cabinet-level officials, people familiar with the matter told the outlet.

Two advisers to Hegseth who were placed on administrative leave and later fired last week amid an ongoing probe into leaks of information at the Pentagon, Dan Caldwell and Darin Selnick, were also included in the chat, according to the Times. Caldwell and Selnick, as well as a third fired official, Colin Carroll, asserted in a joint statement on Saturday that they all "understand the importance of information security and worked every day to protect it" and that "unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door."

Hegseth’s brother and his personal attorney, Tim Parlatore, both have jobs in the Defense Department, the Times noted. His wife is not a Pentagon employee.

The outlet also reported that Hegseth accessed the chat, which he created, via his private phone rather than his government phone.

The Times reported sources aware of the chat said, at about the same time the Defense secretary was divulging information in the chat with Goldberg about strikes in Yemen, the “Defense | Team Huddle” received the same information from Hegseth.

Sources also told the Times that Hegseth first created the “Defense | Team Huddle” chat to talk about administrative or scheduling information and that the chat was not usually used by the Defense secretary to talk about sensitive military operations.

“The truth is that there is an informal group chat that started before confirmation of his closest advisers,” a U.S. official told the Times. “Nothing classified was ever discussed on that chat.”

The official declined to comment about whether Hegseth shared detailed targeting information in the “Defense | Team Huddle,” according to the outlet.

In response to a request for comment by The Hill, the Pentagon sent a statement from Sean Parnell, the department’s chief spokesperson. 

"Another day, another old story—back from the dead. The Trump-hating media continues to be obsessed with destroying anyone committed to President Trump’s agenda. This time, the New York Times — and all other Fake News that repeat their garbage — are enthusiastically taking the grievances of disgruntled former employees as the sole sources for their article.  They relied only on the words of people who were fired this week and appear to have a motive to sabotage the Secretary and the President's agenda,” Parnell said in the statement.

“There was no classified information in any Signal chat, no matter how many ways they try to write the story. What is true is that the Office of the Secretary of Defense is continuing to become stronger and more efficient in executing President Trump's agenda,” he added.

In the wake of previous controversy surrounding Hegseth’s use of Signal, the Department of Defense’s (DOD) internal watchdog launched a probe into whether the Defense secretary “complied with DOD policies” when he used the chat that included Goldberg to talk about the March attack on Houthis in Yemen.

— Updated at 11:10 p.m. EDT