Hegseth scrapped Ukraine aid without telling Trump

The White House was caught off-guard when it emerged the defence secretary had cancelled military aid flights to Kyiv in January.

Pete Hegseth acted without the knowledge of President Trump and high-ranking military officials, according to sources. Picture: AP Photo/Alex Brandon

President Trump’s defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, ordered the cancellation of military aid flights to Ukraine without the knowledge of the White House.

Leading figures close to Trump and senior officials at the national security council, Pentagon and state department were dumbfounded when they received frantic calls from Kyiv saying that a shipment of artillery shells and other munitions had failed to arrive.

It emerged on Tuesday that Hegseth had issued the order to ground the flights after a meeting in the White House on January 30. Sources said that while stopping or curtailing weapons shipments to Ukraine was discussed at the meeting, Trump did not order that the flights be grounded.

The president was unaware of Hegseth’s intervention, as were other top national security officials at the meeting, according to sources.

The incident will prompt further concern about Hegseth’s suitability for the job, for which he was confirmed on January 24. The former National Guard infantry officer and Fox News host is under investigation over his use of the Signal app to discuss sensitive government information.

There were several officials who believed it should have been Hegseth, rather than the national security adviser, Mike Waltz, who was removed from their post last week over the Signal scandal.

Waltz mistakenly invited a journalist to join a group on the messaging app. The group, which included several national security officials and senior White House staff, was told by Hegseth in March about imminent plans to attack Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Hegseth’s suitability for the job has already been called into question. Picture: AP Photo/Evan Vucci

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that Hegseth, 44, had been part of at least 12 chat groups on the app, which the US government does not consider to be secure, including one that included his wife and lawyer. It said that he used Signal to communicate with foreign allies about military operations and to discuss his media appearances and travel plans.

Hegseth was insistent during his congressional hearings that he would return the Pentagon’s focus to the lethality of its war-fighting capabilities and promotion by merit. He denied allegations of sexual misconduct, despite an email emerging from his mother saying he was a serial abuser of women, and of drunkenness.

In office, he has removed a number of diversity, equity and inclusion programmes and has sought to expel trans military personnel, an issue that is jamming up the courts. This week, the defence department announced plans to remove 20 per cent of the military’s highest-ranking officers.

Those who have worked for the defence secretary say he is running a department that lacks direction. “Choosing someone who has never managed an organisation more complex than an infantry platoon is certainly a novel choice,” one Pentagon source said. “But does any of that qualify him to manage the world’s largest, most complex bureaucracy? Absolutely not.”

Stephen Feinberg, deputy defence secretary. Photo: Peter Reitzfeld for The Wall Street Journal

Colin Carroll, who was sacked in April as chief of staff to the deputy defence secretary, Stephen Feinberg, amid a leak investigation, said that the highest-ranking officials were spending 50 per cent of their time worrying about leaks to the media. “[Hegseth] was very focused on the leaks and I think it kind of consumed the team a little bit,” he told The Megyn Kelly Show podcast. “If you look at a pie chart of the secretary’s day, at this point, 50 per cent of it is probably a leak investigation.”

Carroll described Hegseth as being obsessive about his public image and said that videos posted online of his early-morning workouts with soldiers were an attempt to combat reports of his fondness for alcohol.

When asked about Hegseth’s decision to cancel the flights, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said: “Negotiating an end to the Russia-Ukraine war has been a complex and fluid situation. We are not going to detail every conversation among top administration officials throughout the process. The bottom line is the war is much closer to an end today than it was when President Trump took office.”

The Pentagon referred a request for comment to the White House.

The Times