(NewsNation) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, previously under fire for a Signal group chat that divulged details of an imminent U.S. attack on Yemen, shared similar information in a second chat on the messaging app with his wife, brother and personal lawyer on the same day, according to a published report Sunday.
The New York Times’ story — citing four people with knowledge of the exchange — comes after Hegseth and other members of President Trump’s inner circle faced criticisms and calls to resign after a journalist was mistakenly invited into a Signal chat group March 15 as the U.S. readied strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen, the paper said.
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The newly disclosed Hegseth chat group included his spouse, a former Fox News producer who is not a Defense Department employee, and included the flight schedules of jet fighters, the New York Times said.
Other individuals in the exchange reportedly included Hegseth’s brother Phil and Hegseth’s attorney Tim Parlatore. Although both have positions in the Pentagon, it’s not clear why they were looped in on the U.S. strike on Houthi targets.
Hegseth did not create the group chat that mistakenly included an editor from The Atlantic and spawned the “Signalgate” controversy; that was attributed to Trump national security adviser Mike Waltz. But Hegseth did initiate the newly disclosed chat, and on his personal phone, the New York Times said, citing its sources.
Signal group chats, though encrypted, are not considered secure for classified government information. The Trump administration has stuck by Hegseth and Walz, questioning whether the information in the previously disclosed Signal chat was significant enough to constitute a security breach.
