Pentagon's Hegseth in spotlight as officials deflect blame over leaked Yemen chat

By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - America's top spies on Tuesday shifted the spotlight back to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to explain how highly sensitive details he posted in a telephone chat about imminent U.S. strikes on Yemen were not classified.

President Donald Trump's administration has sought to contain fallout from an explosive article on Monday by The Atlantic's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, revealing that he was included in a group chat on the encrypted messaging app Signal with Trump's most senior national security advisors to coordinate on Yemen.

Goldberg said Hegseth posted war plans shortly before the first wave of attacks on March 15 "including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing," which he read from a supermarket parking lot on his phone.

Still, Trump's administration said on Tuesday that no classified information was shared in the chat, bewildering Democrats and former U.S. officials, who regard that kind of targeting information as some of the most closely-held material ahead of a U.S. military campaign.

"There was no classified information, as I understand it," Trump said on Tuesday.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe also said no classified information was shared. But, pressed, they said Hegseth would be the one to determine what defense information is classified.

"The Secretary of Defense is the original classification authority for DOD in deciding what would be classified information," Ratcliffe said.

Asked if details about the strikes on the Houthis, like attack sequencing and timing, would not have been considered classified, Gabbard said: "I defer to the Secretary of Defense and the National Security Council on that question."

For his part, Hegseth has denied sharing war plans in the group chat.

"Nobody was texting war plans, and that's all I have to say about that," he told reporters while on an official trip to Hawaii on Monday.

Goldberg responded to Hegseth's denial in an interview on CNN late on Monday by saying, "No, that's a lie. He was texting war plans."

Senior U.S. national security officials have classified systems that are meant to be used to communicate secret materials. Ratcliffe said National Security Advisor Mike Waltz set up the Signal chat for unclassified coordination and that teams would be "provided with information further on the high side for high-side communication."

"So I think clearly it reflects that the national security advisor intended this to be -- as it should have been -- a mechanism for coordinating between senior level officials, but not a substitute for using high-side or classified communications for anything that would be classified," he said.

"And I think that is exactly what did happen."

A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that if the information was coming from within the Defense Department, Hegseth could have de-classified it, even outside of a formal process.

But another official said that there was a process for de-classification within the Pentagon and if Hegseth decided to unilaterally de-classify the information in the group chat, it would be "extremely suspect."

U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said on Tuesday he expects the Senate Armed Services Committee will look into the issue.

"I think everybody has acknowledged, including the White House, that mistakes were made and what we want to do is make sure that something like that doesn’t happen again," Thune told reporters at the Republican leaders' weekly press briefing.

Republican Representative Don Bacon, a retired Air Force general who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, told reporters that Hegseth needed to take responsibility for the breach, which he said put lives at risk.

Asked about the White House claim that no classified details were shared, Bacon responded: "They ought to just be honest and own up to it."

(This story has been refiled to correct the month to March, not May, in paragraph 3)

(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali; additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by David Gregorio)