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?
“Your current bias.”
Was I Right?
WTF is wrong with you?
Those of you with TDS Type II will defend anything. Welcome to the cult.
I am the only one here who called the impeachment of trump a witch hunt, repeatedly defended him in the asinine NY trial, trashed Bidenomics repeatedly, saw Hegseth for being an idiot, called Trump’s tariffs moronic, and credited both Trump and Biden for getting Taiwan Semiconductor to the US.
Want to see a hypocrite? Look in the mirror.
I defy you to find a writer more balanced on the issues
Mish, you should not waste time justifying things with the MAGA cult. By definition, they are in a cult and mentally ill. If Trump says the sky is purple tomorrow, and you called him on it, the mindless cult here would be defending Trump’s nonsense telling you you’re biased or throwing insults. They are mentally ill and don’t respond to logic or rational thinking. They are beyond help of their own choosing.
Keep up the good work though, some of us appreciate your sense and sensibility.
I would bet the Signal app’s encryption is far better than what the DOD has in place.
Oh well, since the socially constructed world is just a bunch of conspiracies, legal an illegal, known an unknown, over having power an authority for doling out the goodies, I chalk it up to the political means to find the conspiring persons doing the illegitimate political leaks on the legitimate people in power over the normal Pareto distribution of their desired grift and goodies threatened by tariffs and drill baby drill. Funny how these leakers are not pretending to be whistleblowers given their treatment of legitimate whistleblowers when they had the power and authority under bummer Biden and buckaroo Barack. . . .
Tablet magazine has an interesting article on the internal faction fight in the Trump administration ( https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/kings-foils-donald-trump-foreign-policy ) and one of their writers has a running Substack account of that internal fight ( https://substack.com/@parkmacdougald644207/note/p-161833212?r=1ccgl&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action). THAT is something you should read, because you are off your moorings on this politically. Please get back to more straight economics, which you are very good at.
To paraphrase from “As Good as it Gets”
Q: “How do you write republicans so well?”
A: “I start with a normal person, and subtract reason and accountability.”
Discussing classified information over Signal is a big no no. The two big leaks originating from Signal usage show exactly why that is the case. We only have Signal’s assurance that the system is secure. But the real problem is that Hegseth and others seem to have no respect for the security system that hundreds of thousands of law-abiding people work within successfully. So far we’ve had his wife and lawyer, both unvetted, exposed to classified information, along with a hostile reporter from Atlantic magazine and an unknown additional gaggle of leakers. He should be fired. From this point on it’s all on Trump.
One wonders what the real story is here.
Hegseth threw his key aides under the bus somehow.
All of these people are being screwed because they advised against going to fing war with Iran and Israel forces apply outrageous and unacceptable power over our government from top to bottom
We will likely never know the real story behind the scenes
Trump won’t fire incompetence as long as the perp is loyal, in fact Trump seems allergic to competence (for reasons we all know like i mean so juvenile to state Hegseth is doing what he wants him to – getting rid of the “bad guys” in DOD e.g.). Hegs is ultra-loyal, now if he were to outshine Trump or let slip any criticism that would be a different story.
This is even worse than sharing it with the journalist which seems to have been an autocomplete accident (shouldn’t have been on Signal altogether).
this is intentional. He’s adding his wife, his lawyer etc… on purpose to what, show off? it’s an immaturity and lack of serousness to be frivolously sharing this level of info with people for fun.
Nah, it’s plain insider’s trading.
I suspected Hegseth was a dipshit just because of his tats. Most of the on-air personalities at Fox News are midwits at best. BTW, the wife who was on this Signal chat – is she the current wife or one of his first two wives?
All you have to do is look at that smug, punchable, fratboy face, and you know the man is a goddam fool.
Trump already fired the then current Inspector General of the DoD back in January, so somebody pliable is already in the position.
The real story is Trump replaced a bunch of high ranking military leaders back in January, with yes-man Hegseth in control. The Trump administration made sure they were in full control of the military.
Yes, that was the real story.
Hedgseth seemed to get along with some of them, and could have learned from them.
Mitch is pretty smart. He’s worth over $125,000,000.
Interesting connections to the CCP for Mitch
Mish doubles down on his yesterday Hegseth headline. Has yet to criticize Biden for not firing anyone including his SecDef Lloyd Austin for the Afghan evacuation screwup.
This is a problem for Mish. And a pattern….Of course Biden wasn’t in charge which is the biggest scandal. We don’t know who was making decisions until the books come out
“Buh buhhhht Biiiiiiiiidennn…” is a tired defense. Biden is gone. He’s off burbling in his oatmeal. He has no powere over anything.
Biden, past, present, or future, excuses NOTHING.
Own it.
WTF does Biden have to do with this?
It’s about whether or not you can delineate btw right and wrong when it comes to anything related to Trump. Your writings from November and December are very anti Hegseth. Did you give him a fair chance or were you waiting for the first Atlantic article to attack him? B/c there will be more. I’m not happy with what he did, and I’m fine to fire him. But guess what, Biden didn’t fire a soul and that matters. Same way his bullshit preemptive pardons matter. B/c if that’s the way its played than so be it. No crying about J6 protestors or anything else. They fired Spicer off a dopey board just to play ugly politics and opened the door to Trump firing everyone else…..Go back further. Harry Reid. Remember him? Changed the filibuster rules. Like a shithead idiot. And then Democrats complained b/c Republicans could now get judges approved that wouldn’t have been. That’s politics.
Was I right or wrong about Hegseth?
Sheeesh WTF
He had known issues and clearly even more than I thought. How bleeping stupid can you be?
Your current bias. Which is hard to recognize. Austin stepped out of the nuclear command chain and no one really knew. Evens Stevens Mish. A quote from some GOP congressman. Oh yes, that’s authoritative! Its shows cracks in the GOP. James Carville was right! Etc.
Joe Pancakia is playing the “What Aboutism” game. It’s quite common with folks who have TDS type 2.
It’s my side versus their side mentality. The truth suffers.
= for the Afghan evacuation screwup.
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what screwup? unfortunately dozen people died.USA left some used hardware out there . !! did not hear about afgan for 2 years almost.!!!
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AND NOW COMPARE this what to Bush jr did during his 8 years, and for what?
and compare number of dead people!
500 000 kids in Iraq died!!
get lost!!!
alx
MAGA defense tactic 101. Defend wrongdoing by pointing out other wrongdoing.
give it a rest. Afghanistan was 95% Trump’s fault, because of his strategically idiotic deal with the Taliban and drawing troops down to a couple of thousand while the enemy was massing 70,000 ahead of the deadline.
in any evemt what does one have to do with the other? just because Biden is an idiot doesn’t mean Trump and Hegseth aren’t. that’s what MAGA is running on, “we’re no more stupid than Biden”??
I’m a long time supporter of Trump, and I have personally encountered the hatred he stirs up in his opponents. But I dealt with having a security clearance for 30 years, and I understand the need to strictly follow the rules. The Secretary of Defense needs to set an example for people who are depending on him, people who could be killed in combat by a security leak and need to know that he will not frivolously violate security rules just because he feels like it is convenient. The leaks from the first phone call embarrassed the Vice President, the Secretary of State, and the Director of National Intelligence. This is not a matter of partisan politics. Hegseth has gone over the line in a most cavalier fashion, and should be fired. Any other commanding officer anywhere in the military would have been gone in a flash.
He should be fired. Same as Austin who should have been fired. But wasn’t.
The guy you voted for was stupid enough to hire him, and is too damn stupid to fire him.
If only they told us who they were before the election.
Bloomberg, suggesting… well… the obvious, namely that the trade war with China is unsustianable in the long run according to Bessent…
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OFF TOPIC!!
JESUS! again kicking can down the road!!!
I WOULD SELL MARKET AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE!!!!
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USA establishment is not going to do a jack about double deficits!!
obv. methods Mr. Trump was using were STU11PID CAUSE HE IS MO11RON as far gov/macro/finance /trade concerns!
but something must be done!!! it seems nothing will be done!! again.
alx
When “Drain the Swamp” becomes “We are the most talented swamp creatures, hold our beer!”
Obviously MAGA only meant “give us power so we can screw with everything” and anyone who voted Republican was sold a pack of lies. But good luck ever getting them to admit any wrongdoing, that would put Trump’s bullseye on their foreheads.
Always someone else’s fault for my malefeasance. Appears to be a recurring theme among the dc crowd these days.
The Dems made Al Franken quit the senate because he placed his hands on a woman’s breast, OVER HER SWEATER.
Let’s not try to say both sides have the same moral code
Absolutely – Both Parties
Biden has an excuse – He is senile and not calling the shots.
Like master like slave its not me look over there.
Trump has filled his administration with his billionaire buddies, zionists, and amateur ass kissers. Guess which one Hegseth is.
All of the above.