In 2016, a Fox News host expressed his indignation that Hillary Clinton sent government emails to a private server while being secretary of state.
This host said his behavior damaged the country’s credibility. He said it justified being dismissed “on the spot”. And he said that someone who had “even 1/1000th” of what Clinton had done would be imprisoned.
“The fact that she is not held responsible for this, I think, blows the spirit of anyone who has held the secrets of our nation,” he said on Fox News at the time, adding that those who have top secret authorizations “know that even a hiccup causes a problem”.
This Fox News host, Pete Hegseth, is now the defense secretary and faces his own controversy on the sensitive information of poor managing after having sent a text to a group cat – who included an Atlantic journalist – the details of a strike planned in Yemen before its implementation. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz has taken responsibility for creating the group and accidental leak.
The conversation occurred on a smartphone application called signal, which uses end -to -end encryption but is not a government service. Using it to discuss sensitive military issues is not a standard protocol.
Hegseth did it again in a second case, sharing similar intelligence details on a separate cat separated on his personal phone with 13 people, including his wife, brother and personal lawyer, according to two people familiar with the problem. The New York Times reported on the second signal conversation on Sunday.
Hegseth’s attitude concerning its own management of sensitive information? A giant shoulder shift.
This is a clearly different response from 2016, when he vehemently asserts that the blame for the messaging server and not being careful enough with sensitive government information to land squarely on Clinton.
At that time, Hegseth declared on Fox News: “How damaging is your ability to recruit or build allies with others when they fear that our leaders will expose them because of their serious negligence or their imprudence in the management of information?”
In his own situation, Hegseth insisted that in the two signaling conversations, he did not share the “war plans”.
“What was shared on signal, then and now, as you characterize, was informal, not classified,” HegSeth told Fox News on Tuesday.
During the roll of Easter eggs in the White House on Monday, Hegseth was held in front of the cameras to affirm that he was the victim of a “smear” by anonymous sources.
He deplored the media coverage of what he called the “hoax of Russia” and wondered why journalists had still not returned Pulitzer prices for having covered the influence of Russia on this election.
During all this time, Hegseth has circumvented questions on reports detailing his disclosure of defense planning sensitive to people outside the government.
Instead, he blamed the media. He blamed government’s “leaks”. He blamed dissatisfied employees.
“What a big surprise that a few leaks are licensed and a lot of successful pieces come out of the same media that have peddled the hoax of Russia. Will not make their pulitzers. They have obtained pulitzers for a lot of lies,” said Hegseth, referring to reports on Russian interference in the 2016 elections.
A report by the Bipartite Senate in 2020 revealed how the Trump campaign adopted Russia’s intelligence operation in 2016 to injure Clinton and help Trump.
“And as they peddle these lies, no one ever calls them,” HegSeth continued on Monday. “You see, that’s what the media does. They take anonymous sources of dissatisfied employees, then they try to cut and burn people and ruin their reputation. Do not work with me!”
Jesse Lehrich, who was spokesperson for Clinton’s foreign policy on the 2016 campaign, argued that there was no comparison between the sensitivity of the information that HegSeth shared and that of Clinton’s emails.
“She didn’t say:” Hey Chelsea, I hope you had a good day. By the way, here are our war plans “,” said Lehrich, referring to Clinton’s daughter. “The insistence of the (republican) party in the party was that it was a national security scandal of the best order. Obviously, they are flexible with their analysis according to which is at fault. ”
At the time of Clinton’s campaign in 2016 for the president, Lehrich recalled that daily battles extended on what he described as the most harmless details, especially if the wording of a response from Clinton or an assistant was slightly differently to the other.
“Before, she announced her candidacy, through the last days of the campaign, it was an endless and dominant story that constantly led the first page of newspapers and nightlife,” he said.
Clinton wrote in an editorial of the New York Times a few days after the rupture of the history of the Atlantic in March to comment on the HegSeth controversy.
“It is not the hypocrisy that bothers me,” she wrote. “It’s stupidity.”
A spokesman for the Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comments. The White House officials argued that classified information was not shared in conversations.
“Regardless of the number of times the inherited media try to resuscitate the same non-history, they cannot change the fact that no classified information has been shared,” said the assistant press secretary of the White House, Anna Kelly on Sunday. “The recently drawn” leaks “continue to distort the truth to appease their broken Egos and undermine the president’s agenda, but the administration will continue to keep them responsible.”
Angelo Carusone, president of the left journalism surveillance group Media Matters for America, said that Hegseth is isolated to answer questions – at least with regard to the external story that plays for the republican base.
“All these incidents really have only in the context of responsibility and action, in particular in this administration, if there is a story around him … And the truth is that there is no sign that this counts, at least in the right space,” he said.
“I do not think it is that they don’t care or do not see it,” continued Carusone, referring to the administration. “It is that they inoculated against this.”
He said that the right is at a time when it dominates the story, on social networks, podcasts and cable television news. In large part on these platforms, he said, the Conservatives do not focus on the history of the HegSeth signal cat or defend it as a target of the anger of the left because he has sworn to carry out Trump’s initiatives and reform the Pentagon.
However, Hegseth is not out of the woods. A republican senator and supporter of Hegseth called the Pentagon Inspector General to investigate HegSeth communications. On Monday, the first republican legislator called for the resignation of Hegseth. This followed the criticisms of Pentagon spokesperson John Ulyot, who left his post last week and published an editorial in the Politico magazine on Sunday.
“It’s been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon,” wrote Ulyot. “Leaves of operational plans sensitive to mass dismissals, dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president – which deserves better in senior direction.”
“President Donald Trump has a solid record for his senior officials to report,” he continued. “Given this, it is difficult to see the defense secretary Pete Hegseth stay in his role longer.”
