Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was hit with another round of leaks on Thursday after several top aides have been fired for leaking.
The attacks against Pete Hegseth’s use of Signal began last month after Jeffrey Goldberg, the anti-Trump editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, claimed he was accidentally added to a secure Signal group chat where top Trump administration officials discussed sensitive military operations against Iran-backed Houthi terrorists in Yemen.
The Biden Administration installed Signal on government-issued computers, but use of the app only became a scandal during the Trump Administration.
According to a leak to the Washington Post on Wednesday night, Pete Hegseth installed Signal on his desktop at the Pentagon as a way to circumvent ‘the lack of cellphone service’ in the Pentagon.
Hegseth’s spox Sean Parnell hit back and told WaPo the Defense Secretary “has never used and does not currently use Signal on his government computer.”
On Thursday, a leak to the Associated Press expanded on the Pentagon computer leak to WaPo. The AP reported that Hegseth used an unsecured internet line that ‘bypassed Pentagon’s security protocols’ so he can use Signal at his office.
As reported by the AP:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had an internet connection that bypassed the Pentagon’s security protocols set up in his office to use the Signal messaging app on a personal computer, two people familiar with the line told The Associated Press.
The existence of the unsecured internet connection is the latest revelation about Hegseth’s use of the unclassified app and raises the possibility that sensitive defense information could have been put at risk of potential hacking or surveillance.
Known as a “dirty” internet line by the IT industry, it connects directly to the public internet where the user’s information and the websites accessed do not have the same security filters or protocols that the Pentagon’s secured connections maintain.
Other Pentagon offices have used them, particularly if there’s a need to monitor information or websites that would otherwise be blocked.
The latest leak comes as it was reported that Hegseth’s Chief of Staff Joe Kasper will leave his position at the Pentagon after three other Hegseth aides were fired last week.
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