Look! Over There!
Hegseth Says ‘Leakers’ Want to Sabotage Trump’s Agenda
The Wall Street Journal reports Hegseth Says ‘Leakers’ Want to Sabotage Trump’s Agenda
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth lashed out at former aides he called leakers during a Fox News interview, amid deepening turmoil at the Pentagon and controversy over his use of Signal group chats to share sensitive military information.
“Those folks who are leaking, who have been pushed out of the building, are now attempting to leak and sabotage the president’s agenda,” Hegseth said. “They’ve come after me from day one.”
Hegseth, a former Fox News host, is under investigation by the Pentagon’s inspector general over two group chats in the Signal messaging app—one with senior officials that inadvertently included a journalist, and another that included his wife, brother and personal attorney.
Hegseth denied again on Tuesday that he had shared classified information or war plans, characterizing the chat that included his family as “informal, unclassified coordinations for media coordination and other things.”
“If it was me, I’d fire him,” Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, told The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. “He should know better than to share operational details of imminent combat strikes on an unclassified application. A second lieutenant would have his career ended over doing this.”
Kudos to Bacon
Kudos to Rep. Don Bacon, for having the courage to speak his mind. It’s not easy to speak out against the cult.
Meanwhile, in the vast majority of Trumperland, the lies and excuses continue.
Hegseth acts like the kid who pushes his sister down the stairs then blames her for “the leaks”.
The pentagon explicitly warned against using the Signal messaging app because it is not secure. The first time was a major mess, and Hegseth should have been fired on the spot.
It’s happened again and Hegseth is still in denial, with full support of the cult. Hegseth is now under investigation by the Pentagon’s inspector general.
The solution here is obvious: fire the inspector general.
Trump Stands by His Proven Incompetent Secretary of Defense
I commented on some of this yesterday in Trump Stands by His Proven Incompetent Secretary of Defense
The Facts
- A reporter from The Atlantic was inadvertently included in a discussion of a top secret military operation on Yemen.
- That was on an unauthorized signal chat.
- Hegseth’s wife was in multiple meetings where she had no business being.
- Now there is a second Signal chat that one one has even denied.
The hypocrites and liars defend this bullsh*t.
My gosh, they would still be screaming for decades if anything like this happened under Biden. In fact the would be calling for everyone involved to be locked up and charged with national security crimes.
They are not even denying the facts other than lie that there was no classified information in the chats.
On March 26, I noted Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth Digs Bigger Hole With More Lies
When you are caught with your pants down, and there’s an image of it, it’s best not to deny your pants were down.
In a statement Wednesday, Hegseth said, “The Atlantic released the so-called ‘war plans’ and those ‘plans’ include: No names. No targets. No locations. No units. No routes. No sources. No methods. And no classified information.”
And so, since the data is not classified, the Atlantic released more details as I said they should do.
The new messages that were made public by the magazine showed the texts included details about the specific times that F-18s, MQ-9 drones and Tomahawk cruise missiles would be used in the attack and mentions intelligence that an unnamed target of the attacks was at a “known location.”
His texts before the strikes in Yemen, though, included multiple specific details of the looming attack.
In a text entitled “Team Update” on the Signal service, Hegseth wrote that the weather was favorable for the military operation and that “we are a GO for mission launch.”
The text was posted at 11:44 a.m. E.T. on March 15, about 30 minutes before the first U.S. F-18s warplanes that carried out the strikes took off from a U.S. aircraft carrier.
The defense secretary added that “THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP” at 2:15 p.m.
“The information as published recently appears to me to be of such a sensitive nature that based on my knowledge, I would have wanted it classified,” said Sen. Roger Wicker (R., Miss.) the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. “If mistakes were made…they should be acknowledged.”
Earlier this month, the Pentagon sent an advisory to all military personnel warning that a “vulnerability” had been identified in Signal and warned against using it for classified information.
Several U.S. military officials said the strike information Hegseth included was secret when he shared it.
Such information would come from Pentagon planning documents for the operation that are classified, said Mick Mulroy, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East in the first Trump administration.
“Both are classified and highly sensitive,” Mulroy said. “One could actually make the argument that attack plans are more sensitive because they are more detailed and specific on time, place, and manner.”
Bear in mind, the text exchange with The Atlantic included the name of a CIA agent directly involved.
Does anyone in their right mind actually believe this is not classified information?
The stupidest thing about this is all Hegseth had to do was admit the error, apologize, then say it would not happen again.
Instead, he is a proven repeat liar who let it happen again. But hey, blame the leakers.
If Hegseth blamed Mother Theresa, the cult would believe it.
The cult will never admit this, but Senator Mitch McConnell was 100% correct about Hegseth.
Importantly, this has nothing to do with deep state, warmongering, or anything else. Hegseth is proven incompetent.
Anyone with an ounce of sense knew Hegseth was unqualified. He succeeded in proving that beyond his detractors’ wild imaginations.
Someone else could have carried out Trump’s agenda without all of these childish errors and lies.
Addendum
Karoline Leavitt is unable to provide a legitimate reason for her comment the “the entire Pentagon is against” Pete Hegseth, even though the fired whistleblowers were “his own guys.”
Here’s an amusing video on X.
What does this say about Hegseth’s ability to choose staff?