Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly brought his wife to meetings with foreign military leaders where “sensitive information was discussed,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
Jennifer Hegseth, a former Fox News producer, attended two such meetings, the WSJ reported citing multiple people present or had knowledge of the matter.
Mrs. Hegseth accompanied her husband to a meeting with U.K. Secretary of Defense John Healey on March 6. That came a day after the U.S. said it would stop sharing military intelligence with Ukraine in its war against Russia.
She also attended a NATO meeting in Brussels in February “where allied defense officials discussed their support for Ukraine” according to WSJ.
Hegseth brother was also traveling with him on the trip.
A secretary is allowed to invite whomever they want to these meetings, but attendee lists are usually carefully limited to those who need to be there and attendees are typically expected to possess security clearances given the delicate nature of the discussions, defense officials told WSJ.
It is not uncommon for spouses of senior officials to possess low-level security clearances, but a Pentagon spokesperson would not say whether Hegseth’s wife has one.
“When you have meetings with ministers or high-level NATO officials, those meetings almost always include sensitive security conversations,” said former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, a Republican who served in the Obama administration. “If you are going to discuss top secret, national security issues, you have to be very selective. What’s the relevancy of the person you are inviting?”
Hegseth was already in hot water this week after sharing sensitive information, including timings for airstrikes against the Houthi targets in Yemen before they began, in a unsecured Signal group chat where Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was mistakenly added by national security advisor Michael Waltz.
