By Michael R. Gordon, Nancy A. Youssef and Lindsay Wise
WASHINGTON—Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth came under increasing scrutiny after more details emerged Wednesday showing that he posted plans of an imminent military strike against Houthi militants, including the timing and weapon systems, on an unclassified group chat used by senior administration officials.
Several Democrats called for his resignation, saying Hegseth had flouted longstanding security procedures for handling sensitive military information. And the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee called for the Pentagon inspector general to investigate the chat on an expedited basis.
“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,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R., Miss.), who chairs the committee told reporters. “If mistakes were made…they should be acknowledged.”
The new messages made public by the Atlantic magazine Wednesday showed that Hegseth texted details to other senior administration officials about the specific times that F-18s, MQ-9 Reaper drones and Tomahawk cruise missiles would be used in the attack and mentions intelligence that an unnamed target of the strikes was at a “known location.”
Such information is normally guarded carefully by the Pentagon before imminent strikes to avoid disclosures that could help adversaries.
Hegseth said Wednesday in Hawaii at the start of a trip to the Pacific that the texts were routine updates to other top officials as the strike unfolded. It was the third day in a row that he insisted he did nothing wrong. He didn’t address using Signal to send details about the attack but denied the information was classified.
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