WASHINGTON — Democratic veterans on Capitol Hill say there’s a dangerous throughline to Pete Hegseth’s dueling scandals, over the use of an unsecured messaging app and boat bombings in the Caribbean and Pacific: The Pentagon chief is endangering US troops.
A new report from the Pentagon inspector general finds Hegseth — a former Army officer who was a Fox News weekend host before he entered government — put troops in danger this spring when he shared Yemen war plans on the commercial messaging app Signal.
“He shared information he shouldn’t have in a way that he shouldn’t have, and the consequences are that our military could be compromised and the safety of our men and women in uniform could be compromised,” Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) told Raw Story. “That’s what we know.”
“Is that the kind of person that we want to be the Secretary of Defense?” Houlahan — an Air Force veteran and member of both the House Intelligence and Armed Services Committees — said.
“No one should be using Signal in that way. Nobody should be communicating that information at all. It’s just not nobody, it’s the Secretary of Defense.”
Details from the inspector general report on Hegseth’s use of commercial messaging app Signal — including how the then national security adviser, Mike Waltz, came to add Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg to a group chat ahead of strikes in Yemen — are damning to many in Congress.
But that issue pales in comparison to allegations Hegseth signed off on unlawful military strikes in the Caribbean.
To veterans in Congress, it’s unconscionable that Secretary of Defense Hegseth and President Donald Trump, the commander-in-chief, are seemingly letting their underlings take the blame for the military strikes.
“It is incredibly offensive. And it sends a message to the troops that this President, this SecDef, is willing to throw you under the bus,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) — an Army veteran who lost her legs in Iraq — told Raw Story.
“One of the first things you learn as an Army officer, which, you know, [Hegseth] supposedly was, is that you can always delegate authority, but you never delegate responsibility. The responsibility rests with him.”
Hegseth doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo.
‘No leader worth their salt’
On Monday, the Defense Secretary took to social media to seemingly shift the blame.
“Lets make one thing crystal clear: Admiral Mitch Bradley is an American hero, a true professional, and has my 100 percent support,” Hegseth wrote on X.
“I stand by him and the combat decisions he has made — on this September 2 mission and all others since.”
That was the mission when, the Washington Post first reported, an order was given to carry out a second strike on a boat in the Caribbean, the first having left survivors clinging to wreckage.
The Post said Hegseth ordered the second strike, which most analysts say would constitute a war crime. He denies it.
To Duckworth and many other veterans on Capitol Hill, Hegseth passing the buck is scandalous.
“I’ve always known that he’s not qualified for the job,” Duckworth said. “I worry about the service members being put into jeopardy by this, right? We’re violating international laws of armed conflict, we are putting service members in legal jeopardy.
“My focus right now is what are we doing to our service members? We’re putting them in real jeopardy, both legally and also personally. I mean, you know, if we’re going to do this in international waters, what’s to keep some other country from saying, ‘Hey, we’re going to do this to the US’?”
Other senior members of the Armed Services Committees agreed.
“No leader worth their salt pushes responsibility off on a subordinate,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) told Raw Story.
“And if Hegseth gave a ‘kill everybody’ order — and we have to determine whether, in fact, that’s true — that’s a clear violation of law, whether or not he gave it before the second strike. A kill everybody order just in and of itself is a violation of the laws of war.”
Kaine says Hegseth has a bad habit of passing the buck.
“The opening salvo of ‘It’s all a lie’ and ‘It’s journalists who are spinning a fake narrative’ to now, ‘Well, yeah, it’s true but you know, it was Adm. Bradley’s call, not mine’ — I mean, you know, no,” Kaine said.
‘Legal risk’
Kaine and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) are renewing their calls for Congress to pass an AUMF — or
Authorization for Use of Military Force — before the Pentagon carries out more air strikes off the coast of Venezuela.
“We’re seeing realized a lot of the fears members had that this unauthorized campaign would result in blowback to the country, to our troops,” Schiff told Raw Story.
“One of the concerns I’ve had all along has been that we risk putting service members in physical danger, but we also risk putting them at legal risk and that’s exactly what’s happened.”
Hegseth’s Democratic critics say it’s the same with “Signalgate.”
“Secretary Hegseth has been a liability to the administration from the moment he was confirmed,” Houlahan of Pennsylvania said. “At what point does the President recognize that and ask for his resignation?”
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