After the security breakdown in a group chat of rank-high US government agents in connection with the air raids in Yemen, Defense Minister Pete Hegseth is apparently involved in another chat incident. As the “New York Times” reported on Sunday, the Pentagon boss in March shared security-relevant information in a second chat group. The group in the online service signal included “a dozen people from his personal and professional environment” as well as his wife, his brother and his personal lawyer. According to the report, Hegseth’s wife, a journalist and former employee of the broadcaster Fox News, is not employed in the Pentagon, while the brother and lawyer of the minister are working there as the chat US government officials, to which journalist Jeffrey Goldberg was incorrectly invited, was created by Hegseth’s second group chat, the New York Times report said. The newspaper refers to “four people who knew about this conversation”. Hegseth should have shared air plans on this occasion shared the exact airplans of the US aircraft to attack Huthi goals in Yemen. It was “essentially the same attack plans” that Hegseth “had shared on another signal group on the same day,” reported the newspaper. The Pentagon initially did not respond to an inquiry to comment. In mid-March, the Signal Chat group exchanged information on planned attacks on the Huthi-Miliz in Yemen, including Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the national security advisor Mike Waltz and Vice President JD Vance. The editor-in-chief of the US magazine “The Atlantic”, Jeffrey Goldberg, was apparently accidentally invited to the chat on the app. Goldberg made the incident in an article, later published his magazine screenshots of the chats, which contained numerous details such as precise attack times and the aircraft used. The opposition Democrats called for Hegseth’s resignation. Waltz took responsibility for this at the end of March. However, US President Donald Trump replaced the incident afterwards and spoke of a “witch hunt” against government members. Vance concluded layoffs in connection with the chat scandal. The Pentagon department head Hegseth briefly targeted. Pentagon General Inspector Steven Stebbins announced an internal investigation into the role of Hegseth in the so-called chat group affair at the beginning of April. According to Stebbin, the investigation goes back to a corresponding application by the two leading members of the U.S. Senate, a Republican and a Democrat.
