Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pictured April 16, 2025, at the Pentagon. (Alexander Kubitza/Defense Department)

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday defended his sharing of sensitive military details for a second time using the Signal messaging app while faulting Pentagon officials who were recently fired for leaking information.

“Those folks who were leaking, who have been pushed out of the building, are now attempting to leak and sabotage the president’s agenda,” Hegseth told Fox News.

In late March, a Pentagon investigation was initiated into “recent unauthorized disclosures of national security information involving sensitive communications,” according to a memo signed by Joe Kasper, Hegseth’s chief of staff. That probe has led to three top Pentagon officials being fired in the last two weeks.

But Hegseth has faced his own scrutiny in recent weeks after the top editor of The Atlantic magazine, Jeffrey Goldberg, revealed he was mistakenly included in the conversation on the Signal app in which national security officials for President Donald Trump discussed plans for airstrikes in Yemen against Houthi militants.

The chat included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Hegseth and other top officials. Waltz, a former Green Beret, accidentally invited Goldberg to the discussion.

That incident sparked a separate investigation by the acting Defense Department inspector general into Hegseth’s use of the Signal group chat.

Hegseth, an Army National Guard veteran and former Fox News host, is now under fire for a second Signal chat, this time sharing essentially the same attack plans with his wife, brother and personal lawyer, according to a report by The New York Times.

Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer, is a former Fox News producer, and his brother Phil Hegseth was hired at the Pentagon as a Department of Homeland Security liaison and senior adviser. The secretary’s personal lawyer, Tim Parlatore, previously served in the Navy before Hegseth recommissioned him last month into the Navy Reserve and a member of the Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps.

“I said repeatedly, nobody is texting war plans,” Hegseth said during his appearance on Fox News. “I look at war plans every day. What was shared over Signal then and now, however you characterize it, was informal, unclassified coordination, for media coordination and other things. That’s what I’ve said from the beginning.”

Hegseth pulled the airstrike information that he posted in the Signal chats from a secure communications channel used by U.S. Central Command, according to NBC News. He shared the information on Signal, though an aide had warned the defense secretary to be careful not to share sensitive information on an unsecure communications system before the Yemen strikes.

Dan Caldwell, a Hegseth aide, Colin Carroll, chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, and Darin Selnick, Hegseth’s deputy chief of staff, were dismissed from their posts last week as part of the probe into leaks at the Pentagon.

Defense officials have not provided more information about the investigation, which Kasper’s memo had said could include polygraphs. Any evidence from the investigation will be provided to the Justice Department, according to Hegseth.

“Once a leaker, always a leaker, often a leaker. And so, we look for leakers because we take it very seriously and we will do the investigation,” he said. “And if those people are exonerated, fantastic. We don’t think based on what we understand that it’s going to be a good day for a number of those individuals because of what was found in the investigation.”

Caldwell, in an interview Monday with Tucker Carlson, said he has never taken a polygraph or had his access to classified information curtailed before being marched out of the Pentagon.

“We have not been told, as of this recording, one, what we were being investigated for,” Caldwell said. “Two, is there still an investigation? And three, was there even a real investigation?”

He added when he was first escorted out, he thought people would push him to testify against Hegseth in the inspector general’s investigation.

The firings associated with the investigation into leaks was preceded by the resignation of John Ullyot, the former top Pentagon spokesman. Hegseth said Tuesday that Kasper — his chief of staff — is moving into a different job at the Pentagon.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell on Sunday in a statement called the new Signal report “another old story — back from the dead.”

“There was no classified information in any Signal chat,” he said.

More so, the White House on Monday expressed support for Hegseth following the reports.

“It’s just fake news. They just bring up stories,” Trump told reporters. “I guess it sounds like disgruntled employees. You know, he was put there to get rid of a lot of bad people, and that’s what he’s doing. So you don’t always have friends when you do that.”

On Capitol Hill, Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., became the first GOP lawmaker to suggest Trump should fire Hegseth.

“I had concerns from the get-go because Pete Hegseth didn’t have a lot of experience,” Bacon, a former Air Force officer who is on the House Armed Services Committee, told Politico. “I like him on Fox. But does he have the experience to lead one of the largest organizations in the world? That’s a concern.”

Bacon added it wasn’t his place to call on Hegseth to resign, but he wouldn’t stand for Hegseth’s mismanagement if he was in the Oval Office.

“Russia and China put up thousands of people to monitor all these phone calls at the very top, and the No. 1 target besides the president … would be the secretary of defense,” he said. “Russia and China are all over his phone, and for him to be putting secret stuff on his phone is not right. He’s acting like he’s above the law — and that shows an amateur person.”