Loose-lipped Pentagon workers hit Hegseth with crisis equal to Signalgate: analyst

Some Pentagon officials seem willing and able to leak sensitive information about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's shortcomings and failures — and it's creating scandals just as hefty as Signalgate, according to a new article with MSNBC.

Columnist Steve Benen wrote Monday that some defense insiders are ignoring the Trump administration's chief of staff Susie Wiles' directive against leaks to the media.

Even after the revelations last week that detailed war plans about a bomb run on Houthi rebels in Yemen were shared in a Signal chat, "things managed to go from bad to worse for the scandal-plagued former Fox News personality," Benen wrote.

Benen gave the example of a report by The Associated Press on Friday about Hegseth appointing his little brother "to serve as senior adviser to the secretary for the Department of Homeland Security and liaison officer to the Defense Department — a title that has meant, among other things, a trip to Guantanamo Bay and traveling on the Pentagon’s 747 aircraft as the Cabinet secretary makes his first trip to the Indo-Pacific."

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Also last week, The Wall Street Journal published an unflattering report that Hegseth "brought his wife, a former Fox News producer, to two meetings with foreign military counterparts where sensitive information was discussed," the Journal wrote, citing "multiple people who were present or had knowledge of the discussions."

Politico and CNN published their own stories saying that, while President Donald Trump outwardly expressed support for Hegseth, interviews with administration insiders "reflect growing concerns about Hegseth’s leadership at the Pentagon.”

Benen wrote that all of these stories pointed to the fact "that there are some people at the Pentagon who’ve learned some unfortunate things about Hegseth, and they’re suddenly eager to share that information with journalists."

He concluded, "It’s a problem for the Pentagon chief that there’s evidence of his incompetence and failures, but it’s just as notable a problem that there are DOD insiders who are apparently willing to talk to reporters about his incompetence and failures."

Read the MSNBC article here.