Scandal-ridden Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is the “victim” of a cruel “plot” and “is doing a phenomenal job leading the Pentagon,” according to the White House.
“The president stands strongly behind Pete Hegseth,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox & Friends on Monday hours after the defense secretary rejected calls to resign following a second Signal-related scandal in as many months.
“This is what happens when the entire Pentagon is working against you and the monumental change you are trying to implement,” Leavitt said. “Unfortunately there have been people at that building who don’t like the change the secretary is bringing and they are leaking and lying to main-stream media, we have seen this game played before.”
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What she did not mention is that the most public warning about Hegseth’s conduct came from one of the aides he had appointed himself, while Hegseth’s surviving aid, spokesman Sean Parnell, pointed the finger at other aides who were all Trump appointees. That would mean it was MAGA Republicans who were plotting against Hegseth.
Three senior staff members—all of them Trump appointees—were placed on administrative leave last week as part of an investigation into alleged press leaks following the first Signal-related scandal when The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg claimed that he had been added to a Signal group chat with top Trump administration national security officials, in which they discussed sensitive planning details for March 15 airstrikes on Yemen.
Leavitt reiterated the White House’s official line that Hegseth never shared classified information in the chats, but that there are unidentified “leakers leaking classified information” which, she added, “is a crime.”
“The administration and president have taken a strong stance against anyone who leaks classified information that can put our troops and war fighters at risk and he will rein in the leakers and continue to do so, I’m sure,” she said.
Hegseth has faced calls to resign after The New York Times revealed on Sunday that he had a second Signal chat called “Defense Huddle” that included his third wife—who has no official government role—and his brother, who was given a Department of Homeland Security appointment as liaison to the Pentagon.
The embattled Pentagon was thrown into further tumult last week when former top spokesman John Ullyot resigned in the wake of a series of controversies. In a lengthy op-ed for Politico on Sunday, Ullyot let loose on Hegseth’s leadership and warned that more “bombshell stories” are set to leak over the next few weeks.
It follows a joint statement from Dan Caldwell, one of Hegseth’s top advisers, Darin Selnick, deputy chief of staff to Hegseth, and Colin Carroll, chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, over the decision to place them on administrative leave over alleged leaks.
In a statement posted on X, they said: “Unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door... At this time, we still have not been told what exactly we were investigated for, if there is still an active investigation, or if there was even a real investigation of ‘leaks’ to begin with.”
