US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has dismissed new allegations that he shared information about military strikes in Yemen via a Signal chat group that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer.
The Pentagon chief reportedly included details on the strikes on Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis in the private chat - the second time he has been accused of sharing sensitive military information on the commercial messaging app with unauthorised people.
The revelations of a second Signal chat raise more questions about Mr Hegseth's use of an unclassified messaging system to share highly sensitive security details and come at a particularly delicate moment for him, with senior officials ousted from the Pentagon last week as part of an internal leak investigation.
However, Mr Hegseth rejected the claims, saying: "This is what the media does. 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," he said at the White House, adding: "Anonymous smears from disgruntled former employees on old news doesn't matter."
The White House has also denied a report that it has begun searching for a new Defense Secretary.
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said the National Public Radio story on the search was not true.
"As the President said this morning, he stands strongly behind @SecDef," she wrote on X
The New York Times reported that in a second Signal chat, Mr Hegseth shared details of the attack similar to those revealed last month by The Atlantic magazine after its editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was included in a separate chat by mistake, in an embarrassing incident involving all of President Donald Trump's most senior national security officials.
The revelation sparked an uproar, with the Trump administration forced on the defensive over the leak.
A Pentagon inspector general's probe into Mr Hegseth's use of Signal is ongoing.
The second chat included about a dozen people and was created during Mr Hegseth's confirmation process to discuss administrative issues rather than detailed military planning.
The chat included his wife Jennifer, who is a journalist and former Fox News producer, as well as his brother Phil and lawyer Tim Parlatore, both of whom serve in roles at the Pentagon, the newspaper said, citing anonymous sources.
Mr Hegseth's wife has attended sensitive meetings with foreign military counterparts, according to images the Pentagon has publicly posted.
During a meeting Mr Hegseth had with his British counterpart at the Pentagon in March, his wife could be seen sitting behind him.
Mr Hegseth's brother is a Department of Homeland Security liaison to the Pentagon.
Mr Hegseth is facing increasing criticism, with three former staffers penning a statement decrying their dismissals and his own former Pentagon press secretary all but calling for him to be fired.
However the White House backed him, with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt saying "the president absolutely has confidence in Secretary Hegseth".
"I spoke to him about it this morning, and he stands behind him," she said.
The Trump administration has aggressively pursued leaks, an effort that has been enthusiastically embraced by Mr Hegseth at the Pentagon.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell, without evidence, said the media was "enthusiastically taking the grievances of disgruntled former employees as the sole sources for their article."
"The Trump-hating media continues to be obsessed with destroying anyone committed to President Trump's agenda. We've already achieved so much for the American warfighter, and will never back down," Mr Parnell said in a statement on X.
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said that "recently fired 'leakers' are continuing to misrepresent the truth to soothe their shattered egos and undermine the President’s agenda.
Democrats say Mr Hegseth 'must be fired'
Democratic senators said Mr Hegseth could no longer stay in his job.
"We keep learning how Pete Hegseth put lives at risk," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a post to X.
The details keep coming out. We keep learning how Pete Hegseth put lives at risk. But Trump is still too weak to fire him.
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) April 20, 2025
Pete Hegseth must be fired.
"But Trump is still too weak to fire him. Pete Hegseth must be fired."
Senator Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran who suffered significant injuries in combat in 2004, said Mr Hegseth "must resign in disgrace".
A US official at the Pentagon questioned how Mr Hegseth could keep his job after the latest news.
The latest revelation comes days after Dan Caldwell, one of Mr Hegseth's leading advisers, was escorted from the Pentagon after being identified during an investigation into leaks at the Department of Defense.
Although Mr Caldwell is not as well-known as other senior Pentagon officials, he has played a critical role for Mr Hegseth and was named as the Pentagon's point person by the secretary in the first Signal chat.
"We are incredibly disappointed by the manner in which our service at the Department of Defense ended," Mr Caldwell posted on X on Saturday.
"Unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door," he added.
Following Mr Caldwell's departure, less-senior officials Darin Selnick, who recently became Mr Hegseth's Deputy Chief of Staff, and Colin Carroll, who was Chief of Staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg, were put on administrative leave and fired on Friday.
