The wife of the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, attended two meetings with foreign defense officials during which sensitive information was discussed, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal.
The Journal’s report on Hegseth arrived late on Friday as he faced scrutiny for detailing plans of a military strike in a group chat on Signal, made public by a journalist at the Atlantic who was added to the chat. Multiple Democrats have called for his resignation while a bipartisan group of senators sent a letter to the defense department calling for an inquiry into the group chat.
Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer Hegseth, has been present at two meetings where sensitive information was discussed, according to the Journal, citing multiple people who were present at the meetings or have knowledge of her presence at them.
The first meeting reportedly was a high-level discussion at the Pentagon with top UK military officials, including the UK secretary of defense, John Healey, that took place in early March, a day after the US announced it would stop sharing military intelligence with Ukraine.
The second reportedly took place in Brussels in mid-February at Nato headquarters during a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a forum of about 50 nations meant to help coordinate military support for Ukraine as it tries to fight off the invasion Russia launched in 2022.
A defense secretary has the discretion to invite anyone to meetings with foreign counterparts, but officials cited by the Journal said that those attending these types of meetings usually have high-level security clearances. While the spouses of defense officials sometimes receive low-level security clearances, it is unclear whether Hegseth’s wife has any clearance.
Hegseth’s wife is a former producer of the network television show Fox & Friends, where Hegseth was a co-host starting in 2017. The couple married in 2019.
Hegseth also brought his brother Philip Hegseth a podcast producer, on official visits, according to the Journal. Philip Hegseth accompanied his brother to Guantánamo Bay and is currently with him during Hegseth’s tour of Asia.
The defense department did not immediately respond to a Guardian request for comment. In a statement to the Journal, department spokesperson Sean Parnell said that it is “pretty clear to me that [the Journal’s] story is going to be filled with inaccuracies and will not be written in good faith”.
Chuck Hagel, an former Republican secretary of defense who served under former president Barack Obama, told the Journal that national security officials have to be careful about whom they invite to meetings with foreign counterparts.
“If you are going to discuss top secret, national security issues, you have to be very selective,” Hagel said. “What’s the relevancy of the person you are inviting?”
Though the Pentagon has largely pinned the blame for the Signal group chat leak on the national security adviser, Mike Waltz, Hegseth’s ability to handle the sensitive nature of his job as the top military official in the country has also been called into question. On Thursday, a federal judge ordered officials, including Hegseth, to preserve all messages in the Signal group chat.
Republicans have largely defended Hegseth and have brushed off the group chat fiasco in public. But reports suggest that there are some who are privately concerned about Hegseth’s conduct.
“You’re not going to hear a huge public outcry,” an anonymous GOP official told Politico. “But privately, there is a lot of concern about his judgment.”
