Key Points

Hegseth shared sensitive details about a planned military operation targeting the Houthis in Yemen through a private Signal group chat on his personal phone CNN reported, citing three sources.

The chat was initially created during Hegseth's confirmation hearings to coordinate with his closest allies to strategise, two sources said. However, he continued to use it post-confirmation, maintaining communication with a group of over a dozen people.

The revelation comes as some of Hegseth's closest advisers have begun sounding the alarm about the secretary's judgment, including his former press secretary, John Ullyot, and three former senior officials Hegseth fired last week -- his top adviser Dan Caldwell, deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick, and Colin Carroll, who served as chief of staff to the deputy secretary of defence, CNN reported.

"It's been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon. From leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings, the dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president -- who deserves better from his senior leadership," Ullyot said in a statement obtained by CNN.

The second Signal chat is in addition to the one Hegseth used to communicate with Cabinet officials last month about military plans. That chat is under investigation by the Defence Department's acting inspector general.

Earlier this month, in a letter to Hegseth, Acting Inspector General Steven Stebbins notified him of an upcoming evaluation following a request from the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Stebbins had said that the evaluation is in response to recent public reports regarding Hegseth's use of an "unclassified commercial messaging application" to discuss military actions in Yemen in March.

"The purpose of this memorandum is to notify you that we are initiating the subject evaluation. We are conducting this evaluation in response to a March 26, 2025, letter I received from the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, requesting that I conduct an inquiry into recent public reporting on the Secretary of Defense's use of an unclassified commercially available messaging application to discuss information pertaining to military actions in Yemen in March 2025," the letter stated.

A leaked Signal chat had revealed that senior Trump administration officials, including Hegseth, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Ratcliffe, shared details about an upcoming military strike on Yemen, The Atlantic reported.

The messages, inadvertently sent to The Atlantic's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, had raised serious concerns about operational security.

- ANI