WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, issued the following statement calling on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to resign:
“The full set of Signal messages released by The Atlantic today make it clear that Secretary Hegseth and our nation’s highest ranking civilian officials exposed information about military operations that put American servicemembers in harm’s way. The nation needs an independent investigation to understand the full scope of these risks, and the intelligence community must assess the full scope of the damage to intelligence-gathering sources and methods resulting from this failure to keep sensitive information secure.
“Any servicemember who acted with such blatant disregard for our national security would be unceremoniously dismissed, at the very least. Our nation’s highest ranking defense official should not be held to a lower standard than the men and women he oversees. Secretary Hegseth has put our servicemembers in danger and our credibility as a security partner at risk. He can no longer credibly claim that he makes our country safer. For the good of our nation, he must resign.”