Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, is facing the most serious crisis of his tenure amid allegations of war crimes in the Caribbean and a scathing inspector general report accusing him of mishandling classified military intelligence. Despite calls from lawmakers in both parties for his resignation, Hegseth remains defiant and retains the support of Donald Trump.
The twin scandals involve separate but overlapping allegations that critics say reveal a pattern of dangerous recklessness. Democratic legislators have renewed demands for his removal after reports that survivors of a September boat strike were deliberately killed in a “double-tap” attack. Meanwhile, a Pentagon investigation released on Thursday concluded that Hegseth violated department policies by sharing sensitive details via the Signal messaging app hours before airstrikes in Yemen.
The Caribbean campaign, part of the Trump administration’s extrajudicial strikes against suspected drug smugglers, has killed at least 87 people across 22 attacks since September. Trump has justified the operation as essential to combating fentanyl trafficking, claiming each destroyed vessel saves 25,000 American lives, though factcheckers and drug policy experts have dismissed this figure as absurd, noting that fentanyl primarily enters the US overland from Mexico.
Senator Patty Murray, the Democratic vice-chair of the Senate appropriations committee, called for Hegseth’s firing after a bipartisan briefing on the incident. The New Democrat Coalition, a group of 116 House Democrats, issued a statement branding Hegseth “incompetent, reckless, and a threat to the lives of the men and women who serve in the armed forces”.
Critics have also questioned the strategic logic of the Caribbean campaign. Jake Braun, a former senior counter-narcotics official, said the military focus should be on primary trafficking routes in Mexico rather than boats in the Caribbean. Emily Tripp, executive director of Airwars, called for greater transparency from the administration regarding the strikes.
