The wife of the US defense secretary Pete Hegseth attended two meetings with foreign defense officials during which sensitive information was discussed, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal.

The Journal’s report on Hegseth arrived late on Friday as he faced scrutiny for detailing plans of a military strike in a group chat on Signal, made public by a journalist at the Atlantic who had been added to the chat. Multiple Democrats have called for his resignation while a bipartisan group of senators sent a letter to the defense department calling for an inquiry into the group chat.

Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer Hegseth, has been present at two meetings where sensitive information was discussed, according to the Journal, citing multiple people who were present at the meetings or have knowledge of her presence at them.

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Most employees at the US Institute of Peace, a congressionally created and funded thinktank now taken over by Elon Musk’s unofficial “department of government efficiency”, received email notices of their mass firing late Friday, the latest step in the Trump administration’s government downsizing.

The emails, sent to personal accounts because most staff members had lost access to the organization’s system, began going out about 9pm, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisal.

One former senior official at the institute said that among those spared were several in the human resources department and a handful of overseas staffers who had until 9 April to return to the United States. The organization employs about 300 people.

“Mr. President! You talked about some of the violence that’s been going on at dealerships,” a reporter yelled to President Trump as he stood next to Elon Musk and a Tesla parked near the White House lawn earlier this month.

“Some say they should be labeled domestic terrorists.” 

“I’ll do that,” Trump interjected. “We’re going to stop it if we catch anybody doing it because they’re harming a great American company.”

Days later, Trump’s FBI would launch a task force dedicated to investigating and referring for prosecution suspects in a string of incidents protesting Musk at Tesla dealerships across the country. 

It was one of several instances during the first three months of Trump’s second term in which a shouted question or suggestion from a media member has resulted in direct action from the president.

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