US President Donald Trump on Wednesday dismissed a scandal over leaked plans for Yemen airstrikes as a “witch hunt” and defended his embattled Pentagon chief amid calls by Democrats for him to quit.
Republican Trump lashed out after The Atlantic magazine published the transcript of messages accidentally shared with its editor in a group chat of senior US officials on Signal, a commercially available messaging app.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth revealed details in the chat including the times of strikes on Iran-backed Houthi rebels and the type of aircraft, missiles and drones used, before the attacks happened, The Atlantic said.
Photo: AP
“Hegseth is doing a great job, he had nothing to do with this,” Trump said when asked in the Oval Office whether Hegseth should consider his position over the scandal.
“How do you bring Hegseth into this? Look, look it’s all a witch hunt,” Trump said.
“The secretary of defense should be fired immediately if he’s not man enough to own up to his mistakes and resign in disgrace,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries told MSNBC.
Roger Wicker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he was seeking an independent report from the Trump administration.
Democratic lawmakers in the US House of Representatives on Wednesday sought to force the Trump administration to hand over records related to the disclosure of the highly sensitive attack plans.
The lawmakers filed a resolution that — if passed by the House — would require the Trump administration to transmit a wide range of documents, messaging chats, charts, notes from meetings and telephone records related to the discussion on the Signal app.
However, it is unclear if the resolution would pass a vote by either the House Foreign Affairs Committee or the full House of Representatives, but it would keep alive an issue that the White House has sought to downplay since the story was published in The Atlantic.
A source familiar with the resolution said it is led by Representative Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and backed by every Democrat on the panel.
Under House rules, the resolution of inquiry must be voted on by the relevant House committee —in this case, the Foreign Affairs panel — within 14 days, or Democrats can force a vote in the full House.
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