Pentagon chief Hegseth denies sending US military plans in a chat with a journalist

Pentagon Chief Pete Hegseth, speaking about the scandal with Atlantic magazine editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who got into a chat with White House officials when discussing strikes against the Houthis, said on March 24 that no military plans had been disseminated in the messenger.

"No one sent military plans in messages," he told reporters upon arrival in Hawaii. His words are quoted by Fox News.

However, Goldberg himself, in a CNN comment, accused Hegseth of lying. According to the editor-in-chief, military plans were actually discussed in the chat, but he did not include this information in his article about the incident, so as not to disclose confidential data and not put the Pentagon at risk.

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Someone saw the incident as a PR disaster, someone saw it as sabotage.

White House spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt, commenting on the situation, said that US President Donald Trump continued to trust his team, despite the chat scandal. The Atlantic editor-in-chief reported in his article that on March 11 he received a request to connect to the Signal messenger from a user under the nickname of Assistant to the President of the United States for National Security "Mike Waltz". Two days later, Goldberg received a notification that he had been added to the Houthis Small Group group chat. It consisted of about 18 people, including a user named "J.D. Vance."

After that, according to Goldberg, on March 15, a user under the nickname "Pete Hegseth" posted a message that contained details of upcoming strikes against the Houthis. According to him, the estimated time of the start of the strikes coincided with the time of publication on social networks of the first reports of the bombing.