House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries sent a letter to President Trump on Tuesday calling on him to immediately fire Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for discussing plans for military strikes against the Houthis in Yemen over an encrypted messaging app not approved for safeguarding national security secrets.
“The so-called Secretary of Defense recklessly and casually disclosed highly sensitive war plans — including the timing of a pending attack, possible strike targets and the weapons to be used — during an unclassified national security group chat that inexplicably included a reporter,” Mr. Jeffries, New York Democrat, said in the letter to Mr. Trump. “His behavior shocks the conscience, risked American lives and likely violated the law.”
He called Mr. Hegseth “the most unqualified Secretary of Defense in American history” and warned his continued leadership of the Pentagon “threatens the nation’s security and puts our brave men and women in uniform throughout the world in danger.”
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, also stepped up his attacks on Mr. Hegseth for his role in the Signal group chat of Trump national security officials that was to discuss this month’s military strikes against the Houthis. The editor-in-chief of The Atlantic was mistakenly added to the chat and reported on it, but he did not disclose any details he felt crossed a line into classified national security information.
“Instead of accepting responsibility, outrageously, Secretary Hegseth attacked the journalist and called him deceitful,” Mr. Schumer said. “He took the deny till you die approach, even though these messages were already authenticated by the National Security Council spokesperson.”
Mr. Schumer said he fears how Mr. Hegseth will react in future moments of crisis.
“These people, Secretary Hegseth, and so many others, are clearly not up for the job,” he said. “We warned that confirming them was dangerous, that they would behave recklessly.
However, when asked later if he was calling on Mr. Hegseth to resign, Mr. Schumer avoided a direct answer.
“What he did is despicable. We need a complete and thorough investigation,” he said, suggesting probes from Congress and the Pentagon’s inspector general. “The Senate Democrats and Republicans should look into this and have a full investigation. Republicans should not turn their heads the other way with something so serious.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican, said he supports investigating what happened with the Signal group chat and “that’s happening” already, citing a hearing on worldwide threats the Intelligence Committee held Tuesday with two of the officials who were party to the conversation.
“I suspect the Armed Services Committee may want to have some folks testify and have some of those questions answered as well,” Mr. Thune said. “I think everybody has acknowledged, including the White House, that mistakes were made. What we want to do is make sure that something like that doesn’t happen again.”
Mr. Hegseth and White House officials have claimed he did not disclose any war plans or national security secrets over Signal.
Senate Armed Services ranking member Jack Reed, Rhode Island Democrat, said that they should provide Congress with a copy of the group chat to validate their claims.
“I can’t imagine that this information was not classified,” he said, citing The Atlantic’s report that Mr. Hegseth provided operational details of the military strikes before they were carried out.
“To quote Secretary Hegseth himself talking about the mishandling of classified documents: ’If at the very top there is no accountability, then two tiers of justice exist. There must be one tier of justice,’” Mr. Reed said.
The senator also said the Signal chat settings allowing the messages to erase themselves after a certain amount of time would be a violation of federal records preservation law.
