For U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, the crux of the mistake Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made in discussing sensitive attack plans in a chat that inadvertently included a magazine editor comes down to whether Hegseth knew the journalist was in the chat.
Since there’s no evidence Hegseth knew the editor was on the chat, she does not believe he should resign.
Confronted
Lummis was asked about the issue while talking to a group of reporters Wednesday morning at the Russell Senate Office building in Washington, D.C.
The interaction was shared by CNN reporter Haley Talbot via X (formerly Twitter).
“Did Pete Hegseth know there was a reporter on the call?” Lummis questioned an unidentified reporter after being shown a paper copy of the conversation string from the Signal chat.
The reporter responded that “it’s not clear,” but mentioned how the conversation took place in an unclassified setting.
Lummis then repeated her original question again with a smile.
This drew another reporter’s irritation, who gave her opinion that the real issue at hand is that the conversation took place in an unclassified setting.
Lummis disagreed and said the only issue is whether Hegseth knew the editor was in the chat.
“The bigger issue is did Pete Hegseth know there was a reporter on the call, that’s the issue,” she said. “He did not. He thought he was speaking to his fellow cabinet members. He should not resign.”
She then turned and walked away, not answering another question about whether National Security Advisor Mike Waltz is at fault, who has taken responsibility for the leak.
Should He Resign?
Several Democrats have called for Hegseth and Waltz to resign.
“When the stakes are this high, incompetence is not an option,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote in a post on social media. “Pete Hegseth should resign. Mike Waltz should resign.”
According to The New York Times, while some Republican lawmakers have called for an investigation, most have shied away from criticizing the Trump administration and have refrained from calling for any officials to step down.
U.S. Sen. John Barrasso also does not think Hegseth should resign, but described the situation as a serious matter when asked about it by reporters this week.
“I think the whole thing is very unfortunate," he said. "We cannot allow it to happen again.”
Rep. Harriet Hageman has not yet commented publicly on the matter.
The Facts
There’s no evidence that Hegseth was aware that The Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg was included in the unclassified group chat on the encrypted messaging app Signal.
Goldberg was inadvertently included on chat where Hegseth’s national security colleagues discussed a timeline for a pending battlefield attack on Houthi rebels in Yemen.
The chat included the time that F/A A-18F Super Hornet jets were supposed to launch and the time that MQ-9 Reaper drones would fly in from land bases in the Middle East.
Had this information leaked to the general public, the Houthi fighters and missile experts the U.S. was targeting in Yemen might have had time to escape, and the lives of American pilots and other service members could have been put at risk.
Hegseth has said the communication didn’t amount to war plans and White House staff have tried to minimize the significance of the leak, saying the information was unclassified. This runs contrary to Hegseth’s own references in the Signal chain to “operational security.”
“So, this was not classified,” President Donald Trump insisted during a meeting with U.S. ambassadors Tuesday. “Now if it’s classified information, it’s probably a little bit different, but I always say, you have to learn from every experience.”
The Atlantic originally didn’t publish specific information about the attacks out of concern that they could be classified and have national security implications. The magazine later published them after the Trump administration insisted that the material was not classified and disputed Goldberg’s characterization of the texts.
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
