Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth Tuesday claimed attack plans he shared with pals on a Signal group chat amounted to nothing more than “informal, unclassified” information.

The embattled Pentagon chief insisted he did nothing wrong by using his personal phone to share detailed plans for U.S. strikes on Houthi militants in Yemen with about a dozen associates, including his wife, brother and lawyer.

“What was shared over Signal … was informal, unclassified coordination for media coordination and other things,” he told Fox News.

Hegseth blamed the mainstream media for what he called smear tactics against him and President Donald Trump.

“Left-wing journalists….wanted to create a problem for the president,” he continued. “That’s what it’s all about. Trying to get at President Trump and his agenda.”

NBC News reported that the attack plans shared by Hegseth appear to have been shared with him minutes earlier by a top Pentagon general using a secure government communications channel.

The new allegations amount to a second bombshell revelation about Hegseth and other senior Trump officials improperly using unsecure communication channels to discuss sensitive information.

Hegseth shared details of the March strike on Yemen in real time with other officials on a Signal chat group created by National Security Adviser Mike Waltz. It became public because Waltz mistakenly added Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg to the group.

It’s unclear if Hegseth is in any serious jeopardy of being ousted by Trump over the security lapses.

Trump has publicly expressed confidence in him and White House insiders mostly say they don’t expect him to be fired unless there are damaging new revelations.

Aside from the Signal scandal, Hegseth is scrambling to deal with the fallout from the recent departure of four senior Pentagon appointees under murky circumstances.

The four, all onetime allies of Hegseth, describe a dysfunctional atmosphere under the former Fox News host’s leadership.

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