Hegseth suggested that disgruntled former employees who were recently fired leaked the information about his use of Signal group chats to the media.
“You know, what a big surprise that a bunch of leakers get fired and suddenly a bunch of hit pieces come out from the same media that peddled the Russia hoax,” Hegseth told reporters at the White House when asked about the latest revelations.
Two sources with knowledge of the matter told NBC News that Hegseth shared information about milit strikes in Yemen in a Signal group chat that included his wife and his brother. The New York Times was the first to report the news, citing four unnamed sources.
“This is what the media does,” Hegseth said this morning. “They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees, and then they try to slash and burn people and ruin their reputations. Not going to work with me.”
Several top Pentagon aides working for Hegseth were fired in recent weeks. John Ullyot, a former aide, wrote in an op-ed for Politico that officials working for Hegseth tried to smear the fired aides, “claiming they were fired for leaking sensitive information as part of an investigation ordered earlier this month … none of this is true.” Ullyot said he “was not a victim of this purge” and had left voluntarily.
