Defense Minister Hegseth before the end?

US defense minister Hegseth is still under pressure in the so-called signal gate affair. The first Republicans are now calling for his resignation. What exactly is it about and how does President Trump react?

What will be US defense minister Hegseth accused?

Hegseth, according to media reports, is said to have shared military plans for attacks on the Huthi-Miliz in Yemen in a group chat via the Signal app with his wife Jennifer and other people. According to this, around 13 people from the second chat group called Defense Team Huddle are said to have listened.

Hegseth's brother and his personal lawyer are said to have been chat members – both, according to the media reports, have jobs in the Pentagon, but his wife does not. She worked as a producer at Fox News.

Hegseth is already criticized for a chat known in March, to which the editor -in -chief of the magazine The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, was apparently accidentally added.

The magazine reported that Hegseth and other high-ranking US government agents had discussed attack plans for Yemen via the Signal app, including operational details and information about goals, the weapons used by the USA and the attack sequences.

Vice President JD Vance, FBI boss Kash Patel, CIA director John Ratcliffe and intelligence coordinator Tulsi Gabbard have belonged to this chat group. The attacks had started two hours after the journalist Goldberg received the details.

Why does the whole thing have one security policy Relevance?

Signal is not part of the safe communication network of the Ministry of Defense. Strict safety regulations apply especially for discussions about a possible effort and other delicate questions.

Such conversations may only be guided in particularly shielded rooms (“sensitive compassion information facility”) or digitally via specially secured smartphones or other IT devices.

According to the New York Times, the recently known, second chat group, created the second chat group. He is said to have spread the same start times for fighter planes as in the chat known almost four weeks ago. The television broadcaster CNN also reported about it.

How safe is signal?

Signal has effective end-to-end encryption, which cannot be cracked by modern quantum computers even. By default, all messages, calls and group chats are encrypted with the signal protocol. As a result, neither the operator nor third parties can access the content.

Despite his good reputation, data protection officers are bothered by the fact that Signal requires a telephone number for registration because this limits anonymity.

This can find out who belongs to a signal account. With other messengers such as wire and element, you can store an email address instead of a telephone number, which can be easily created anonymously. With the Swiss Messenger Threema, for example, you don't have to link anything.

Observers such as Johannes Thimm of the Science and Politics Foundation, after the first chat group became known, spoke of a “potential threat to US soldiers” if such sensitive data are replaced in this way.

What does Hegseth say about the allegations? What does Trump say?

Hegseth said the information about the second signal chat at an Easter for families in the Garden of the White House, the allegations were based on information from angry former employees who tried to “settle people down and ruin their reputation. It doesn't work for me”.

US President Donald Trump has so far been firmly with his Defense Minister. “He was used to get rid of a lot of bad people. And that's exactly what he did,” said Trump in front of reporters on Monday.

Hegseth wobbles as Defense Minister?

Republican congress member Don Bacon, a former airwaffen general and a member of the Defense Committee, told the Magazin Politico, Hegseth acted amateur. If the reports about the second signal chat were right, this was completely unacceptable. He did not want to tell the White House how to deal with it, but: “If I had that, I wouldn't tolerate it.”

NPR reported, citing a non -named government official, that the White House had initiated the procedure for looking for a successor for Hegseth. Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt described this as fake news – and pointed out that the President Hegseth had publicly strengthened his back hours earlier.

According to New York Times, Hegseth is said to have created the second chat himself and used it from his private phone.

Legal professor Ryan Goodman, who was once active as a lawyer in the Ministry of Defense, also said in the broadcaster CNN that the second chat could potentially be a bigger problem for Hegseth because he “communicated attack plans to people who should never have received”.