Hegseth Hegsething Again…
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared detailed information about forthcoming strikes in Yemen on March 15 in a private Signal group chat that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer, according to four people with knowledge of the chat.
Some of those people said that the information Mr. Hegseth shared on the Signal chat included the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets targeting the Houthis in Yemen — essentially the same attack plans that he shared on a separate Signal chat the same day that mistakenly included the editor of The Atlantic.
Mr. Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer, a former Fox News producer, is not a Defense Department employee, but she has traveled with him overseas and drawn criticism for accompanying her husband to sensitive meetings with foreign leaders.
Mr. Hegseth’s brother Phil and Tim Parlatore, who continues to serve as his personal lawyer, both have jobs in the Pentagon, but it is not clear why either would need to know about upcoming military strikes aimed at the Houthis in Yemen.
The previously unreported existence of a second Signal chat in which Mr. Hegseth shared highly sensitive military information is the latest in a series of developments that have put his management and judgment under scrutiny.
Joe Kasper, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s chief of staff will leave his role in the coming days for a new position at the agency, according to a senior administration official, amid a week of turmoil for the Pentagon.
Senior adviser Dan Caldwell, Hegseth deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick and Colin Carroll, the chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, were placed on leave this week in an ongoing leak probe. All three were terminated on Friday, according to three people familiar with the matter, who, like others, were granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.
The latest incidents add to the Pentagon’s broader upheaval in recent months, including fallout from Hegseth’s release of sensitive information in a Signal chat with other national security leaders and a controversial department visit by Elon Musk.
Caldwell, Carroll, Selnick and Kasper declined to comment. Two of the people said Carroll and Selnick plan to sue for wrongful termination. The Pentagon did not respond to a request of comment.
Look… I’ve been the guy who feels out of his element and incapable of making a serious contribution to an ongoing project or conversation. In such circumstances the temptation to share Precious Information (in my case semi-spicy gossip, in Pete’s case details of US bombing raids against Yemen) is difficult to resist. Moreover, Pete is probably still struggling with his decision to go sober, a difficult project at any time but especially after someone has made you Secretary of Defense.
Trump’s instinct here is probably to tighten his grip on Hegseth as the heat dials up. This is an intelligible reaction from a political point of view (Trump doesn’t like to show weakness) but the danger is that Hegseth is eventually going to fuck something up (if I recall, his current position is Secretary of Department of Defense of the United States of America, a job well-known for its opportunities to fuck stuff up) that can’t be unfucked. From the perspective of hoping for competence and effective execution of the defense policy of the United States I’d hope that Trump ends the experiment soon; from the perspective of someone who enjoys pointing and laughing at Pete Hegseth’s failures, I hope we get four years of this.
The Pentagon is in “total chaos” and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is unlikely to remain in his role, according to its former top spokesperson, who painted a scene of dysfunction, backstabbing and continuous missteps at the highest levels of the department.
“The building is in disarray under Hegseth’s leadership,” John Ullyot wrote Sunday in a POLITICO Magazine opinion piece. “The dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president — who deserves better from his senior leadership.”
Ullyot, who resigned from the Pentagon last week, described a department in collapse. He accused Hegseth’s team of “falsehoods” about why three top officials were fired last week, saying they hadn’t leaked sensitive information to the media. He chastised Pentagon officials for how they handled revelations that Hegseth shared sensitive military information in a Signal chat, and he pointed to other leaks that caused embarrassment to the administration.