Democratic Senator Chris Coons slams Pete Hegseth for bringing his wife to high-level military meetings

WASHINGTON, DC: Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) criticized Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth for taking his wife, Jennifer Rauchet, to high-level military intelligence meetings.

Rauchet, a former Fox News producer, was reportedly part of the Pentagon meeting with the United Kingdom's secretary of state for defence, John Healey, on March 6.

She was also present during a meeting at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters in Bels in February, as reported by the Daily Beast.

Though spouses of senior officials are usually given confidential clearance, it’s not common for them to join such meetings, as per the outlet. 

Chris Coons says Pete Hegseth bringing his wife to high-level meetings is 'not normal at all'

During an interview on MSNBC’s ‘The Weekend’, on the topic of Pete Hegseth bringing his wife to high-level military intelligence meetings, Chris Coons said, "That’s not normal at all. Look, I’ve traveled overseas on congressional delegation trips with Republicans and Democrats."

"On some of those trips, our spouses come along with us [but] they are not allowed in any secret, sensitive, classified meeting with foreign heads of state, with foreign officials," he claimed.

The 61-year-old politician also stated that "those meetings are usually conducted separately from any sort of a spouse program."

"Just because… Secretary Hegseth has one of the highest levels of classification access, he can’t just hand that to his wife and say, 'Here, honey, hold my beer and hold my classified information,'" Coons stated. 

"It just doesn’t work that way," the Delaware Democrat asserted.

Pete Hegseth makes his younger brother a Pentagon aide

Meanwhile, it has been reported that Pete Hegseth is appearing to turn the Department of Defense into a family thing.

He appointed his younger brother, Phil Hegseth, as "senior adviser to the secretary for the Department of Homeland Security and liaison officer to the Defense Department," as reported by the Associated Press. 

"Phil Hegseth, one of a number of talented DHS liaisons to DOD, is conducting touch points with US Coast Guard officials on the Secretary’s Indo-Pacific trip," Deputy Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson shared in a statement.

Pete Hegseth faces lawsuit over Signal group chat blunder

Pete Hegseth has been named as one of the defendants in a lawsuit filed by the nonpartisan and nonprofit watchdog group American Oversight on March 25, as per the Daily Beast. 

He along with Marco Rubio, Tulsi Gabbard, and more are being sued for adding The Atlantic's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, to a Signal group chat discussing millitary strikes in Yemen.

American Oversight's Interim Executive Director Chioma Chukwu said in a statement, "This reported disclosure of sensitive military information in a Signal group chat that included a journalist is a five-alarm fire for government accountability and potentially a crime."