Is the media serious with this story? They’re trying to do Signalgate 2.0, but this time trying to rope in Secretary of Defense’s Pete Hegseth’s wife? It would appear so. In March, the Wall Street Journal ran with a story in which Hegseth shared sensitive information at a meeting where his wife was allegedly present. We don’t know if this is true because no one would go on the record to confirm it. Now, we have The New York Times trying to rehash the Signal stuff again, based on “four people with knowledge of the chat” (via NYT):
They know they've officially lost the MS-13 wife-beater "scandal" so they've whipped up "Secretary of Defense talked to his wife." https://t.co/vzVyY2gj5w
— Tony Kinnett (@TheTonus) April 21, 2025
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared detailed information about forthcoming strikes in Yemen on March 15 in a private Signal group chat that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer, according to four people with knowledge of the chat.
Some of those people said that the information Mr. Hegseth shared on the Signal chat included the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets targeting the Houthis in Yemen — essentially the same attack plans that he shared on a separate Signal chat the same day that mistakenly included the editor of The Atlantic.
Mr. Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer, a former Fox News producer, is not a Defense Department employee, but she has traveled with him overseas and drawn criticism for accompanying her husband to sensitive meetings with foreign leaders.
Mr. Hegseth’s brother Phil and Tim Parlatore, who continues to serve as his personal lawyer, both have jobs in the Pentagon, but it is not clear why either would need to know about upcoming military strikes aimed at the Houthis in Yemen.
The previously unreported existence of a second Signal chat in which Mr. Hegseth shared highly sensitive military information is the latest in a series of developments that have put his management and judgment under scrutiny.
[…]
In a statement, Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, did the same after the latest revelation. “No matter how many times the legacy media tries to resurrect the same nonstory, they can’t change the fact that no classified information was shared,” Ms. Kelly said.
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Yes, that’s the proper response from the White House reagrding this work of fiction. It dovetails with the first Signal non-story, where The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg was included in a Signal chat with top Trump aides, in which he alleged that classified war plans were discussed. They weren’t—CIA Director John Ratcliffe was on that chat and denied the Goldberg’s allegations. The Atlantic wasn’t going to release the chats because they valued state secrets or something; that position lasted two seconds as they felt the story was dying. The Atlantic and Goldberg are notorious for being anti-Trump clowns, but even with the new chats—no war plans were discussed. What was revealed was that the administration is taking the Houthi threat seriously and doing stuff like this:
These Houthis gathered for instructions on an attack. Oops, there will be no attack by these Houthis!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 4, 2025
They will never sink our ships again! pic.twitter.com/lEzfyDgWP5
The media and the Democrats wanted Pete Hegseth tossed from the get-go, and the lengths at which they’ll go is veering on embarrassing.
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