Pete Hegseth is a National Security Risk

A new report from the New York Times once again shows the folly of putting a cable anchor in charge of the Pentagon

Who could possibly have guessed that appointing a weekend cable anchor with a reported drinking problem and an array of ethical concerns would have gone poorly?

It was National Security Advisor Michael Waltz who initiated the infamous group chat (and accidentally invited a reporter to join), but it was Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth who shared the most sensitive information, potentially putting U.S. troops at risk.

Unsurprisingly, that immense lapse of judgment was not an aberration. On Sunday afternoon, the New York Times reported:

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.

What a profoundly unserious, irresponsible moron—but what else can you expect from a guy whose primary responsibility was to fill in when Steve Doocy caught a cold?

Another day, another scandal with significant legal, political, and national security revelations.

This Should Be Investigated

Just like the original group chat reported by The Atlantic, it’s very likely that Hegseth committed crimes.

Sharing “national defense” information with unauthorized personnel is a violation of the Espionage Act. Hegseth’s wife is certainly not authorized, and while his brother is a Pentagon employee (another potential scandal!), there is no reason why he would be authorized for such information.

Government officials are required to keep records of all official communications for the National Archives. If Hegseth reportedly set the Signal chain to “disappearing messages,” he may have also violated the Presidential Records Act.

He’s been on the job for less than three months. This is the second occasion on which he has been caught irresponsibly—possibly illegally—sharing some of the government’s most sensitive information.

We only know about the first instance because Michael Waltz stupidly invited a reporter to join. The second one appears to have come to light because several of Hegseth’s top aides, including two who were reportedly part of this group chat, were fired for leaking information (and potentially exposing another scandal).

How many others are out there?