Signal chat leak: Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth under spotlight for bringing wife Jennifer to sensitive meetings
ByHT News Desk
Mar 29, 2025 10:05 AM IST
Pete Hegseth's brother Philip has also been reportedly travelling with him on official visits, in the capacity of a liaison and senior adviser.
Facing a slew of criticism over the recent Signal chat controversy, leaking details of a military strike in Yemen to a journalist, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also reportedly took his wife to two meetings with foreign military counterparts.
US Defense secretary Pete Hegseth's wife Jennifer earlier this month attended a high-level meeting between him and his UK counterpart at the Pentagon. (AFP)
US Defense secretary Pete Hegseth's wife Jennifer earlier this month attended a high-level meeting between him and his UK counterpart at the Pentagon. (AFP)
People familiar with these meetings or present there, as per the Wall Street Journal, said that the defense secretary's wife Jennifer Hegseth, a former Fox News producer, attended two meetings with foreign military counterparts of the US, wherein sensitive information was discussed.
Jennifer Hegseth at two high-level meetings
One of these meetings was a high-level discussion at the Pentagon, which took place on March 6, between Hegseth and his UK counterpart John Healey. The meeting came just a day after the US announced that it had cut off military intelligence sharing with Ukraine.
Present at the meeting where Adm. Tony Radakin, head of the UK's armed forces. The two sides discussed Washington's rationale behind its decision, as well as future military collaboration between the US and the UK.
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Hegseth had attended this meeting with his wife Jennifer seated behind him.
According to WSJ, a secretary can invite anyone to their meetings with visiting counterparts. However, the list of attendees are usually limited to those who need to be there or who possess security clearances, given the sensitive nature of these meetings. Often, security deployments are also seen near the meeting space to ensure that uninvited attendees keep away.
Jennifer is not a defense department official, said defense officials. However, it is unusual for spouses of senior officials to have low-level security clearances but, a Pentagon spokesperson refused to tell whether Hegseth's wife has one.
She also was present at a meeting last month at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) headquarters in Brussels, where allied defense officials discussed the war in Ukraine and the support for Kyiv, WSJ reported citing two persons who attended the meeting.
The meeting took place on the sidelines of a February conference of NATO defense ministers, with a gathering of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group and a US-led forum of some 50 nations that meets from time to time to coordinate on production and delivery of weapons and other aid for Ukraine.
At these close-door meetings, national representatives present sensitive and classified information, officials added.
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Some foreign attendees at the meetings did not know Jennifer's real identity, people familiar with both the meetings know. Some were also surprised by her presence, however, they did not bring it up to anyone.
With the Signal chat leak issue, members of the Congress from both Democratic and Republican sides have raised concerns about Hegseth's way of dealing with sensitive information.
Senator Roger Wicker, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Senator Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the panel, sent a letter to the Defense department's inspector general, asking for the launch of an inquiry into the chat.
'Rare for spouses' to attend national security talks
Reportedly, high-ranking defense personnel bring their spouses on official travel and ceremomial functions occasionally. At the NATO conference in Brussels, Pete Hegseth had told the media that his wife had joined him, meeting with families of the US troops in Belgium and Germany.
However, as per current and former defense officials, it is rare for spouses, especially private citizens, to sit in on national security discussions.
A former secretary of defense under president Barack Obama, Chuck Hagel, was cited by WSJ, "When you have meetings with ministers or high-level NATO officials, those meetings almost always include sensitive security conversations."
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"If you are going to discuss top secret, national security issues, you have to be very selective. What's the relevancy of the person you are inviting?" He said that a secretary bringing his wife to such conversations raise several questions, why is she there, what is she doing. "It also puts staff on guard over what to say and to whom. It introduces an issue you don't need to introduce," Hagel added.
Jennifer, with a vast career in television news, met Pete Hegseth when was a producer on 'Fox & Friends'. The two married each other in 2019. Later, Jennifer became the vice president at Fox Nation, the network's streaming service. As per Fox News spokeswoman Irena Briganti, Jennifer Hegseth is no longer an employee at Fox.
Pete Hegseth's brother Philip
Additionally, the Pentagon said that Hegseth's brother, Philip Hegseth, has also been travelling with him on official visits. The Defense secretary's office also confirmed that Phil is serving as liaison and senior adviser inside the Pentagon.
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Spokeswoman Kingsley Wilson said in a statement, Philip Hegseth's official title is senior adviser to the secretary for the Department of Homeland Security and liaison officer to the Defense department.
Though it is common for federal departments and agencies to have liaisons but, it is unusual for those senior-level positions to be filled by family members of the Cabinet heads, said Michael Fallings, a managing partner at Tully Rinckey PLLC, a firm which specialises in federal employment law.
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