House Republicans have shielded Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth from scrutiny over his growing Signal scandal by quietly gutting Democrats’ ability to investigate him.
Tucked into a procedural rule approved Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson and GOP leaders inserted language that effectively blocks the minority from forcing votes on “resolutions of inquiry”—a rare but powerful tool Democrats could’ve used to investigate the Trump administration’s misuse of Signal.
These resolutions rarely succeed, but Hegseth’s behavior had crossed enough lines that even some Republicans were reportedly uneasy. Blocking the vote now spares the GOP the risk of a public fracture—and Hegseth from further humiliation.
And the timing is no accident. Democrats have been escalating demands for answers about the Trump administration’s growing “Signalgate” disaster. In March, Hegseth and other Cabinet officials shared details of a planned military strike in Yemen in a Signal group chat that, inexplicably and accidentally, included The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief.
“We’re using the rules of the House to prevent political hijinks and political stunts. And that’s what the Democrats have. So we’re preventing this nonsensical waste of our time. We don’t have time to waste,” Johnson said just before the vote.
What Johnson’s really doing is changing the rules to protect his party from politically damaging votes, even if most registered voters have told pollsters that someone should be fired as a result of the Signalgate fiasco.
The resolution blockade runs through September 30. But if the plan was to shield Hegseth, Johnson’s going to need more than a few parliamentary tricks.
The Washington Post revealed Wednesday that Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer, who—like her husband—lacks any real qualifications, has been deeply involved in running the Pentagon. Despite never holding any sort of government role, she’s helped coordinate Hegseth’s media appearances, managed the Defense Department’s social media, and even weighed in on hiring decisions.
Meanwhile, the Signal fallout keeps getting worse. In addition to his first war plans leak, Hegseth maintained a second Signal group that included his wife and personal attorney. And last week, it emerged that he had installed an unsecured “dirty line” in his office so he could use Signal on a personal laptop—bypassing Pentagon cybersecurity protocols entirely.
But Democrats aren’t letting this slide.
Rep. Adam Smith of Washington told NPR that Republicans “can’t defend” Hegseth’s conduct and are “going to extraordinary process lengths to try to prevent Congress from doing its job.”
Even some Republicans weren’t impressed with their colleagues’ protection of Hegseth.
“It looks like they tried to sneak it in there. It should be a little more transparent,” Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska told CNN.
Bacon, who once called Hegseth an “amateur” and encouraged President Donald Trump to fire him, added that Hegseth is only making things worse by refusing to take responsibility.
“Credibility is [the] most important thing we have in this town. And when you don’t acknowledge you made a mistake, your credibility’s shot,” he said.
And it’s not just his Signal mess that proves Hegseth is unfit for the job. On Tuesday, he proudly announced that he axed yet another so-called “woke” program—one that had been signed into law by his own boss.
The GOP’s procedural block is a blow to Democrats, who’ve filed multiple resolutions of inquiry during Trump’s first 100 days, targeting everything from Cabinet Signal misuse to billionaire Elon Musk’s conflicts of interest and the damage his so-called Department of Government Efficiency is inflicting.
Republicans might think they’re saving one of their own, but they’re only making Hegseth’s scandals look worse. And no rule change is going to stop the bleeding.
Campaign Action Alex Samuels April 30, 2025 at 11:30PM From Daily Kos
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