BURSTRetired Brig. Gen. Steve Anderson on Wednesday said President Trump needs to hold Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth accountable for the Signal group chat in which sensitive military information about a strike on the Houthi group in Yemen was discussed.
Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic editor in chief, was inadvertently included in the chat, which also included Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump national security adviser Mike Waltz, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Vice President Vance.
“You know, we have got to set a standard in this country. We’ve got to hold our leaders accountable and responsible," said Anderson, a staunch supporter of former Vice President Kamala Harris, during an afternoon appearance on CNN’s “CNN News Central.”
"And President Trump needs to hold these same leaders accountable and responsible. And that starts with firing, I believe Pete Hegseth. Remember, he’s the one that said, ‘Accountability starts now.’ Well, Secretary Hegseth, let’s start with accountability by having you submit your resignation today.”
Anderson referenced a quote from Hegseth’s January confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee where he promised the Pentagon would see a surge in accountability.
“I know our incoming businessman president believes in accountability and holding people accountable. That will happen at the Pentagon,” Hegseth told lawmakers.
The Defense secretary has denied Goldberg’s article chronicling the receipt of war plans and slammed the journalist as a “a deceitful and highly discredited, so-called journalist who’s made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again.”
He doubled down on the statements in a Wednesday post on the social platform X where he wrote, “No names. No targets. No locations. No units. No routes. No sources. No methods. And no classified information.”
However, Goldberg’s published screenshots showcase times American F-18 fighter aircraft and MQ-9 drones took off for Yemen before the March 15 airstrikes.
Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) have called on Hegseth to resign in the wake of the reports, although the Trump administration said they maintain full confidence in their defense team.
“Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man,” President Trump told NBC later adding it was “the only glitch in two months, and it turned out not to be a serious one.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and other officials also deny that classified information was shared in the Signal chat and said an investigation would be launched to see how Goldberg was inadvertently added to the thread.
“There were critical battle damage assessments. There was human intelligence that was contained in that thread. There is somebody now on the ground in Yemen that is at risk, that might be being tortured right now, because they know that we had eyes on this guy walking into his girlfriend’s apartment,” Anderson told CNN.
“This is absolutely egregious. This is top secret information. These people should be fired.”
The retired brigadier general said the conversations among national security leaders through the messaging app should have been held offline due to their highly sensitive information and susceptibility to hackers or foreign adversaries.
“Taxpayers have devoted billions of dollars to develop these classified systems, this capability to have these kind of conversations. The discussions they had were totally appropriate, but not to be done on a cell phone. Anybody’s cell phone can be hacked,” Anderson said.
“We are constantly at risk of being hacked all the time. Everybody knows that. And these people were lazy and incompetent and that’s why they’re doing that.”
Waltz said he took "full responsibility" for adding Goldberg to the chat but that he didn't know how it happened.
"They’re not using official lines of communication," Anderson said. "They’re using snap chats and discussions on social media so they can get around the requirements of the law."