CNN Pentagon correspondent Natasha Bertrand said that all of the information leaking out of the Department of Defense has left Secretary Pete Hegseth "paranoid."
Host Jake Tapper for Tuesday's episode of "The Lead" described Hegseth's latest scandal in which he "shared sensitive, possibly classified pending military strike plans on Signal group chats" that included his family members.
Tapper cited "informed sources" who told CNN "that calling that chat informal unclassified coordination for media coordination and other things," is "mostly an accurate description of that second signal chat, until Pete Hegseth then shared that sensitive information about the pending attack on the Houthis, which was similar, if not identical, to what he sent in the other signal chat that included, accidentally, journalist Jeffrey Goldberg."
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Tapper cited sources who said that Hegseth is "engaging in selective truth sharing to hide the seriousness of what he did."
Bertrand said "Hegseth has been extremely paranoid about leaks dating back probably to the middle of March, when several stories began leaking."
Those reports dealt primarily with issues involving the Middle East and the Panama Canal, as well as the meeting at the Pentagon with tech billionaire Elon Musk.
"So, he has been on a rampage, according to our sources, trying to, kind of, find who might be disclosing this information," she said. "And what we are told is that because of that, he did order this leak probe, but he essentially has become so suspicious of everyone around him that his inner circle has dramatically shrunk over the last several weeks, to the point where it's now about three people, including his wife and his lawyer."
Three Pentagon advisers were fired last week after what Politico called a "leak investigation." None of the men can figure out why they were fired since they weren't involved with leaks, the report said.
Bertrand said that there is a sense Hegseth may be "trying to find a scapegoat."
See her full comments in the video below or at the link here.