Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth continued to double down on Tuesday that three senior Pentagon officials who were fired last week were leaking information to the press, and that he did not share any classified information in a second Signal group chat reported over the weekend.
“When we had leaks, which we have had here, we did a serious leak investigation. And through that leak investigation, unfortunately, we found some folks that we believe were not holding to the protocols that we hold dear here at the Defense Department. Through that investigation, they have been moved on, and that investigation continues,” Hegseth said Tuesday morning in an interview on “Fox and Friends.”
Hegseth also confirmed the existence of a second Signal group chat — members of which included his wife, brother, and personal lawyer — in which he shared sensitive military operation details. He said Tuesday that “was shared over Signal, then and now, however you characterize it, was informal, unclassified coordinations for media coordinations and other things.”
More context: Hegseth’s comments come a day after one of the officials, Dan Caldwell, who has known Hegseth for years and was serving as his senior adviser, told Tucker Carlson in an interview on Monday that he did not leak or photograph classified material and has not been polygraphed. Caldwell also said that as of Monday, neither he nor the other two officials – Hegseth’s former deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick, and Colin Carroll, chief of staff to the Deputy Defense Secretary — have been told what they were investigated for or if there is still an active investigation. Caldwell, Selnick, and Carroll denied leaking information in a joint statement on Saturday.
Hegseth said the investigation, which is being led by the Office of Special Investigations, or OSI, is still ongoing. Asked by Fox’s Brian Kilmeade on Tuesday why the officials were not polygraphed, Hegseth reiterated that the investigation has “led to some unfortunate places, people I have known for quite some time.”
He added that believes the information about the second Signal chat came from one of the fired individuals in an effort to “sabotage the agenda of president or the secretary.”
