WASHINGTON: US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned on Tuesday of possible prosecutions of former senior advisers who were fired during a probe into leaks of Pentagon information to the media, saying evidence would be handed over to the Department of Justice once the investigation is completed.
Dan Caldwell, who was one of Hegseth’s top advisers, and two other senior officials were fired on Friday after being escorted out of the Pentagon. But they have denied any wrongdoing and said they have been told nothing about any alleged crimes.
Hegseth, who has come under fire for using unclassified messaging system Signal to discuss plans to attack Yemen’s Houthi group, left open the possibility that individuals could be exonerated during the investigation but played down those chances.
“If those people are exonerated, fantastic. We don’t think — based on what we understand — that it’s going to be a good day for a number of those individuals because of what was found in the investigation,” Hegseth told Fox News.
Hegseth said there had been a number of leaks that triggered the investigation, including about military options to ensure US access to the Panama Canal and Elon Musk’s visit to the Pentagon.
“We said enough is enough. We’re going to launch a leak investigation,” Hegseth said.
“We took it seriously. It led to some unfortunate places, people I have known for quite some time. But it’s not my job to protect them. It’s my job to protect national security.”
He said evidence would eventually be handed over to the Department of Justice.
“When that evidence is gathered sufficiently — and this has all happened very quickly — it will be handed over to the DOJ and those people will be prosecuted if necessary,” Hegseth said.
Caldwell had played a critical role as an adviser to Hegseth and his importance was underscored in a leaked text chain on Signal disclosed by The Atlantic last month.
In it, Hegseth named Caldwell as the best staff point of contact for the National Security Council as it prepared for the launch of strikes against the Houthis in Yemen.
On Sunday, news emerged of a second Signal chat, a disclosure that Hegseth and other officials have blamed on former Pentagon employees.
Despite growing calls from Democrats for Hegseth to resign, President Donald Trump has stood firmly by his defense secretary.
John Ullyot, who was ousted from his job as a Pentagon spokesperson after two months, said on Sunday that Hegseth’s Defense Department was in “total chaos.”
“The dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president — who deserves better from his senior leadership,” Ullyot wrote in an opinion piece in Politico.
Asked about Ullyot’s remarks, Hegseth said: “He’s misrepresented a lot of things in the press. It’s unfortunate.”
Pentagon says leak probe may lead to US prosecutions
https://arab.news/gc8h7
Pentagon says leak probe may lead to US prosecutions
- Hegseth left open the possibility that individuals could be exonerated
- “We said enough is enough. We’re going to launch a leak investigation,” he said
Storms spark travel mayhem and power cuts in northern Europe
- Some 50 flights were canceled in London’s Heathrow airport, affecting thousands of passengers
- In France, Goretti cut power to some 380,000 homes, most of them in the northern Normandy region
CHERBOURG, France: Gale-force winds and storms barrelled through northern Europe on Friday, disrupting air and rail travel and cutting power to hundreds of thousands in freezing temperatures.
Some 50 flights were canceled in London’s Heathrow airport, affecting thousands of passengers, with air travel disrupted across Europe from the Czech Republic to Moscow.
Forecasters from Britain to Germany urged people to stay indoors as they issued weather warnings, including the rare, highest-level red wind alert for the British Isles of Scilly and Cornwall in southwestern England.
All trains were canceled in Cornwall on Friday.
Some 57,000 homes in the UK remained without electricity, according to the National Grid energy provider, after Storm Goretti brought strong winds and heavy snow to parts of the country overnight.
More than 250 schools remained closed across Scotland, which has struggled through bad weather for much of the first week back after the Christmas break.
In France, Goretti cut power to some 380,000 homes, most of them in the northern Normandy region, the Enedis power provider said.
Overnight, gusts of up to 216 kilometers per hour (134 miles per hour) were registered in France’s northwestern Manche region, authorities said.
The winds felled trees with at least one crashing on residential buildings in France’s Seine-Maritime region, without injuries, authorities said.
Gusts of up to 160 kph lashed England and Wales with the Met Office forecasting agency warning of “very large waves” bringing “dangerous conditions to coastal areas.”
It also issued an amber snow warning in Wales, central England and parts of northern England, predicting snow of up to 30 centimeters (11 inches) in some areas.
More than 10 people have died in weather-related accidents this week across Europe.
The latest deaths were reported by Turkish media, where five people were killed.
While two were killed in separate accidents involving dislodged roof tiles, a Syrian man died when a wall fell on him, a construction worker was swept into the Aegean Sea and a pensioner fell off a roof.
- Schools out -
Schools remained shut in parts of northern France, where weather alerts have been issued in 30 other regions.
Giant waves crashed over harbor walls across France’s far northwest overnight, and as the storm moved eastwards it brought flooding and forced the closure of roads and ports including Dieppe.
Northern Germany faced severe disruption from heavy snow and high winds brought by Storm Elli, with schools ordered closed in the cities of Hamburg and Bremen and long-distance rail services canceled.
Some 600 schools were closed in Moldova until next Monday and around 1,000 homes were without electricity in Romania.
Floodwaters were meanwhile receding in parts of the Balkans on Friday after heavy snowfall and torrential downpours earlier in the week triggered hundreds of evacuations across several countries and killed at least two people.
In Albania, one of the hardest-hit in the region, Prime Minister Edi Rama said authorities were beginning to count the cost of flooding after hundreds of homes were inundated primarily in the south.
But weather warnings for icy conditions and snowfall remained in effect across most of the region, including Serbia, where parts of the west have been without power for days after a snowstorm knocked out power lines.
