Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth brought his wife to at least two meetings with foreign military leaders where “sensitive information was discussed,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
The Journal reported on Friday night that Jennifer Hegseth, a former Fox News producer who met the secretary during their time together at the network, was at a high-level meeting with her husband and U.K. Secretary of Defense John Healey on March 6. That came a day after the U.S. said it would stop sharing military intelligence with Ukraine in its defensive war against Russia. She also attended a NATO meeting in Brussels in February “where allied defense officials discussed their support for Ukraine, according to two people who attended the meeting.”
secretary can invite anyone to meetings with visiting counterparts, but attendee lists are usually carefully limited to those who need to be there and attendees are typically expected to possess security clearances given the delicate nature of the discussions, according to defense officials and people familiar with the meeting. There is often security near the meeting space to keep away uninvited attendees.
Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer Hegseth, isn’t a Defense Department employee, defense officials said. It isn‘t uncommon for spouses of senior officials to possess low-level security clearances, but a Pentagon spokesperson declined to say whether Jennifer has one. Jennifer didn’t respond to requests for comment.
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Some foreign attendees at the meetings didn’t know who Jennifer Hegseth was, according to people familiar with both gatherings. Others were surprised by her presence, but proceeded without raising objections, the people said. It isn‘t clear whether her presence affected what was discussed at either session.
It’s unusual for spouses to sit in on such meetings, according to current and former defense.
Judge Moves to Prevent Hegseth, Waltz and Others From Deleting Houthi Texts
Judge James E. Boasberg said top officials, including the defense secretary, the national security adviser and the secretary of state, must preserve the messages they exchanged.
A federal judge in Washington on Thursday ordered several Trump administration officials who participated in a Signal group chat discussing the details of a pending attack on Yemen to preserve all of the messages they exchanged on the app in the days leading up to strikes.
The decision by the judge, James E. Boasberg, came in response to a lawsuit filed this week by a nonprofit watchdog group American Oversight, which has accused President Trump’s national security team of violating federal records laws by using Signal — an encrypted commercial platform — to chat about the highly sensitive attack on Houthi rebels in Yemen.
The order by Judge Boasberg, who sits in Federal District Court in Washington, applied to top administration officials, including Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Waltz; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth; Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence; Secretary of State Marco Rubio; and Vice President JD Vance.
It covered the period between March 11 and March 15.
Private data of Trump officials in Signal scandal accessible online: report
Der Spiegel reports that in some cases it found password details for Mike Waltz, Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard via hacked data dumps and commercial providers
The private data of top security advisers to US President Donald Trump can be accessed online, German news magazine Der Spiegel reported on Wednesday, adding to the fallout from the officials’ use of a Signal group chat to plan airstrikes on Yemen.
Mobile phone numbers, email addresses and in some cases passwords used by national security adviser Mike Waltz, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, and director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard can be found via commercial data-search services and hacked data dumped online, it reported. It is not clear in all cases how recent the details are.
Even More Venmo Accounts Tied to Trump Officials in Signal Group Chat Left Data Public
WIRED has found four new Venmo accounts that appear to be associated with Trump officials who were in an infamous Signal chat. One made a payment with a note consisting solely of an eggplant emoji.
A number of top Trump administration officials—including four who were on a now-infamous Signal group chat—appear to have Venmo accounts that have been leaking data, including contacts and in some cases transactions, to the public. Experts say this is a potentially serious counterintelligence problem that could allow foreign intelligence services to gain insight into a target’s social network or even identify individuals who could be paid or coerced to act against them.
The officials in question include Dan Katz, chief of staff at the US Treasury; Joe Kent, President Trump’s nominee for director of the National Counterterrorism Center; and Mike Needham, counselor and chief of staff to the secretary of state. All three were participants in the “Houthi PC small group” chat in which sensitive attack plans were discussed and to which Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, was accidentally invited. Katz was named in it as a point of contact by Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary; Kent by Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, to whom Kent serves as acting chief of staff; and Needham by Marco Rubio, the secretary of stat
NepoBro: DUI Hire Hire’s Younger Brother to Key Role Inside the Pentagon:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s younger brother is serving in a key position inside the Pentagon as a Department of Homeland Security liaison and senior adviser, Hegseth’s office confirmed.
The high-profile job has meant meetings with a UFC fighting champion, a trip to Guantanamo Bay and, right now, traveling on the Pentagon’s 747 aircraft as Hegseth makes his first trip as defense secretary to the Indo-Pacific.
