Egypt Daily News – Following controversy over reports that he shared information via the Signal app, the White House confirmed that President Biden supports his Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated on Monday that no classified conversations were shared on Signal, and added, “There are officials within the Pentagon who oppose change and are leaking information.”
A New Leak
These statements came after former Pentagon employees reported that Hegseth had shared details of a March attack on the Houthis in a Signal group that included his wife, brother, and personal lawyer.
The remarks come at a particularly sensitive time for the Defense Secretary, following the dismissal of several senior Pentagon officials last week amid an internal investigation into information leaks.
Pentagon Denial
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell earlier denied reports that Hegseth shared information about U.S. airstrikes on Yemen in a separate Signal chat group.
In a statement posted on X, he said the reports were false and propagated by “media outlets hostile to President Donald Trump and obsessed with destroying anyone aligned with the president’s agenda.”
“Disgruntled Former Employees”
He also called the accusations “nonsense,” saying that the media promoting these rumors relied on “disgruntled former employees and statements from those dismissed this week.”
He concluded by stressing that “the Secretary of Defense is becoming stronger and more effective in carrying out Trump’s agenda.”
Internal Investigation
Hegseth, a former Fox News host, is also under internal Pentagon investigation for sharing sensitive information via Signal on March 15 in a conversation that reportedly included a journalist who had apparently been invited by mistake.
Last month, The Atlantic magazine revealed that its editor-in-chief had accidentally been added to a Signal chat where officials including Hegseth and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, discussed airstrikes carried out on March 15.
That incident sparked significant uproar at the time, and the Pentagon Inspector General’s investigation into the leaks is still ongoing.
