By TARA COPP and ERIC TUCKER

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House expressed support Monday for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth following media reports that he shared sensitive military details in another Signal messaging chat, this time with his wife and brother.

Neither the White House nor Hegseth denied that he had shared such details in a second chat, blaming what they called disgruntled employees and the media and claiming no classified information was shared.

“The president stands strongly behind Secretary Hegseth, who is doing a phenomenal job leading the Pentagon,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday. “And this is what happens when the entire Pentagon is working against you and working against the monumental change that you are trying to implement.”

The posture from President Donald Trump’s administration was meant to hold the line, at least for now, against Democratic demands for Hegseth’s firing when the Pentagon is engulfed in turmoil. Four senior aides departed last week during an internal investigation over information leaks.

The latest revelation was certain to add to questions about the judgment of the embattled Pentagon chief, coming on top of last month’s disclosure of his participation in a Signal chat with top Trump administration leaders in which details about the military airstrike against Yemen’s Houthi militants were shared.

Leavitt’s description of an internal conflict between Hegseth and the Pentagon workforce reflected the administration’s efforts to deflect attention from the national security implications of the revelation by casting it instead in starkly political terms and blaming disgruntled former employees as the source of the claims.

Latest reports of Hegseth’s Signal use

The New York Times reported Sunday that the information shared in a Signal messaging chat with Hegseth’s wife, brother and others was similar to what was communicated in the already disclosed chain with Trump administration officials.

A person familiar with the contents and those who received the messages, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, confirmed the second chat to The Associated Press. The person said it included 13 people and was dubbed “Defense ‘ Team Huddle.”

White House officials first learned of the second Signal chat from news reports Sunday, according to an official familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations.

Hegseth, responding to the reports while attending the White House Easter Egg Roll, didn’t address the substance of the allegations or the national security implications they raised but instead assailed the media.

“They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees and then they try to slash and burn people and ruin their reputations,” Hegseth said. “Not going to work with me. Because we’re changing the Defense Department, putting the Pentagon back in the hands of warfighters. And anonymous smears from disgruntled former employees on old news doesn’t matter.”

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, struck a similar tone, writing on Sunday night on X: “Secretary Hegseth is busy implementing President Trump’s America First agenda, while these leakers are trying to undermine them both. Shameful.”

The Trump administration’s response on the use of Signal

The Trump administration has struggled in its public explanations about senior officials’ use of Signal, a commercially available app not authorized to be used to communicate sensitive or classified national defense information.

The first chat, set up by national security adviser Mike Waltz, included a number of Cabinet members and came to light because Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, was added to the group.

Officials have repeatedly insisted that the information shared on Signal was not classified, though the contents of that chat, which The Atlantic published, shows that Hegseth listed weapons systems and a timeline for the attack on the Iran-backed Houthis last month.

The Trump administration has faced criticism for failing to take action so far against top national security officials who discussed plans for the strike in Signal, and the latest report fueled additional calls for Hegseth’s ouster.

“The details keep coming out. We keep learning how Pete Hegseth put lives at risk. But Trump is still too weak to fire him,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer posted Sunday on X. “Pete Hegseth must be fired.”

The New York Times reported that the group in the second chat included Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer, who is a former Fox News producer, and his brother Phil Hegseth, who was hired at the Pentagon as a Department of Homeland Security liaison and senior adviser.

The Times said the second chat had the same warplane launch times that the first chat included. Multiple former and current officials have said sharing those operational details before a strike would have certainly been classified and their release could have put pilots in danger.

Hegseth’s Signal use is under investigation by the Defense Department’s acting inspector general at the request of the bipartisan leadership of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The senior Democratic member, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, urged the watchdog Sunday to probe the reported second chat as well.

Wider turmoil inside the Pentagon

The Pentagon has confronted a wave of turbulence stretching beyond Signal. Defense officials have faced scrutiny over a seemingly haphazard and disjointed campaign to purge online content that promoted women and minorities, in some cases scrambling to restore posts after their removals came to light.

Just last week, four officials in Hegseth’s inner circle departed as the Pentagon hunts down leaks of inside information.

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Hegseth Said to Have Shared Attack Details in Second Signal Chat

Dan Caldwell, a Hegseth aide; Colin Carroll, chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg; and Darin Selnick, Hegseth’s deputy chief of staff; were escorted out of the Pentagon.

While the three initially had been placed on leave pending the investigation, a joint statement shared by Caldwell on X on Saturday said the three “still have not been told what exactly we were investigated for, if there is still an active investigation, or if there was even a real investigation of ‘leaks’ to begin with.”

Caldwell was the staff member designated as Hegseth’s point person in the Signal chat with Trump Cabinet members.

Former Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot also announced he was resigning last week, unrelated to the leaks. The Pentagon said, however, that Ullyot was asked to resign.

Associated Press writers Chris Megerian and Zeke Miller contributed to this report.

If one understands the history and functioning of the Federal Reserve system, one must wonder if Jerome Powell’s recent remarks in Chicago were not just careless, but instead carefully premeditated? What if his speech was the bait in a premeditated trap for an ill-informed president known to have zero capacity for self-control?

The new administration’s wholesale firings violate a slew of laws, the Civil Service Act, the Administrative Procedures Act and the legislation setting up sundry quasi-independent commissions with their own five- or seven-member boards. In any single set of firings, people who were harmed can file for redress in federal court. But that is a daunting challenge.  It takes a lot of money.  Law firms are gun shy, not wanting to offend a patently vindictive highest official. And exactly how vital an issue are details in federal personnel management regulations?

Trump renews attacks on Federal Reserve Chair Powell, accelerating US market slide.

But the Federal Reserve system is different in all important ways. The Board of Governors was created by Congress in the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 that was greatly amended in 1935.  The central issue in all of this was to have an effective central bank that was free of control by either political officials or Wall Street.

The 1913 Act established a set of autonomous Federal Reserve District Banks, each as a legally private entity incorporated in the state where located. This was precisely to placate the often radical populists of early 20th century America, now seen as forebears of Trump’s MAGA movement.  The Fed, despite the enmity it draws from this group, was created, in large part, as a bulwark protecting MAGA interests from political and financial elites,.

Employees of these district banks are not government employees. They are categorized by the U.S. Labor Department as banking and financial workers. They do not have civil service protection, mandated veterans’ preference or any other trapping of federal employment. Their officers, unlike those of the Board of Governors in Washington, are not subject to the salary caps that apply to members of Congress, federal judges or generals. So each of the 12 district bank presidents earns some multiple of Jerome Powell’s $226,300.

Thus no one, other than the nine-person boards of directors of each district bank, can tell their president and other officers what to do.  No federal official in Washington has any standing to require these banks to take or not take actions like filing suits in federal court.

Each of these banks is legally autonomous within the complex system of 12 banks and the Board of Governors. That system is in turn autonomous within the federal government. Each bank has a legal mandate to supervise safety and soundness of depository institutions, manage complex payments systems moving tens of billions of dollars daily and enforce consumer protection. Each also plays a role in establishing monetary policy for the country as a whole.

Legally these districts are not part of the federal government. But to do their jobs correctly, the 12 district banks need the coordinating actions of the Board of Governors and its staff. So they have a vital interest in its statutory operation.

Moreover, they set their own budgets and do not depend on any congressional appropriation. And they employ dozens of staff lawyers.

So they unquestionably have legal standing to challenge a politically motivated firing of any Governor in violation of the Federal Reserve Act. There is no budget constraint. They have in-house legal staff and established connections with private law firms of all specialties. And there are many reams of legislative history proving that insulating the Board of Governors from presidential or congressional interference was not some legislative frill, but rather the core principle underlying a complex structure.

Yes, presidents name Fed governors. These must be confirmed by the Senate. There are seven of them and each, barring resignation or death, is appointed to a 14-year term. Terms begin on Feb. 1 of even numbered years. So a president inaugurated in January of an odd-numbered year could never, barring resignation or death, nominate more than three governors even if the president served two terms. Three governors are purposely only a minority on a seven-member board. This, together with the specific clause that no governor may be fired “except for cause” are the carefully legislated means to accomplish the necessary end of having a money supply free of political control. No federal court at any level will be able to deny this.

So what if key leaders in the 12 banks as well as at the board of governors decided to end interminable White House browbeating. Perhaps immediately make push come to shove with the following scenario.

Powell,  savvy Board Chair with a Princeton BA and a Georgetown JD who has rotated between Wall Street, the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve for over 40 years, writes a low-key, but pointed  600-word speech. Knowing beforehand the questions his interlocuter for the Q&A will ask, he plans his answers accordingly. Eschewing usual Fed waffling, he openly predicts that Trump tariffs will boost inflation and depress output. Going entirely beyond his purview, he gratuitously opines that the GOP’s proposed budget deficit solution for 30 years is flawed and will fail.

The trap has been baited. The president has been jabbed in the gut with a sharp stick. Trump reacts angrily, makes threats, and hears his advisors’ urgings of patience. Initially holding back, he rises at 2 a.m. a few days later and sends out an angry post firing Powell. All news outlets report his decision. Pundits opine, markets fall into turmoil.

However, on the next business day, several Federal Reserve district banks, including New York, Chicago and San Francisco, jointly petition a federal court to enjoin Powell’s firing. The filing seems remarkably well drafted for such a short time! It clearly lays out how and why immunity from political control is at the very core of our nation’s central bank.

As the White House appeals at each level, the Fed banks file increasingly detailed briefs refuting whatever arguments inexperienced and demoralized Justice Department lawyers slap together. Bankers’ associations, consumer federations, retired chairs of the Senate banking committee join friend-of-the court briefs.

When it gets to the Supreme Court, an amicus brief jointly written by conservative federal judge J. Michael Luttig and Harvard constitutional scholar Lawrence Tribe helps carry the day. The justices are convinced. Even Clarence Thomas joins his colleagues in a unanimous, terse and crushing decision in favor of the Fed plaintiffs..

The upshot? Trump gets a very public judicial spanking, just as he runs into increasing headwinds on many fronts. Powell stays on as Chair until the end of January. Dr. Adriana Kugler, whose term ends the, is preplaced by Trump nominee Kevin Warsh. Powell graciously cedes the chair to Warsh, but stays on as a  board member for the two years in his term, denying Trump the ability to fill a second slot.  Monetary policy continues to be made as intended by wiser Congress a century ago.

St. Paul economist and writer Edward Lotterman can be reached at ed@edlotterman.com.

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By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, Associated Press Technology Writer

Google confronts an existential threat Monday as the U.S. government tries to break up the company as punishment for turning its revolutionary search engine into a ruthless monopoly.

The drama will unfold in a Washington courtroom during the next three weeks during hearings that will determine how the company should be penalized for operating an illegal monopoly in search. In its opening arguments, federal antitrust enforcers also urged the court to impose forward-looking remedies to prevent Google from using the same strategies to build a monopoly around artificial intelligence.

FILE – A woman walks by a giant screen with a logo at an event at the Paris Google Lab on the sidelines of the AI Action Summit in Paris, Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, File)

“This is a moment in time, we’re at an inflection point, will we abandon the search market and surrender them to control of the monopolists or will we let competition prevail and give choice to future generations,” said Justice Department attorney David Dahlquist.

The U.S. Department of Justice is asking a federal judge to order a radical shake-up that would ban Google from striking the multibillion dollar deals with Apple and other tech companies that shield its search engine from competition, share its repository of valuable user data with rivals and force a sale of its popular Chrome browser.

The moment of reckoning comes four-and-half-years after the Justice Department filed a landmark lawsuit alleging Google’s search engine had been abusing its power as the internet’s main gateway to stifle competition and innovation for more than a decade.

“This is a time for the court to tell Google, and all the other monopolists who are out there listening, and they are listening, that there are consequences when you break anti-trust laws,” Dahlquist said.

After the case finally went to trial in 2023, a federal judge last year ruled Google had been making anti-competitive deals to lock in its search engine as the go-to place for digital information on the iPhone, personal computers and other widely used devices, including those running on its own Android software.

That landmark ruling by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta sets up a high-stakes drama that will determine the penalties for Google’s misconduct in a search market that it has defined since Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded the company in a Silicon Valley garage in 1998.

Since that austere start, Google has expanded far beyond search to become a powerhouse in email, digital mapping, online video, web browsing, smartphone software and data centers.

Seizing upon its victory in the search case, the Justice Department is now setting out to prove that radical steps must be taken to rein in Google and its corporate parent, Alphabet Inc.

“Google’s illegal conduct has created an economic goliath, one that wreaks havoc over the marketplace to ensure that — no matter what occurs — Google always wins,” the Justice Department argued in documents outlining its proposed penalties. “The American people thus are forced to accept the unbridled demands and shifting, ideological preferences of an economic leviathan in return for a search engine the public may enjoy.”

Although the proposed penalties were originally made under President Joe Biden’s term, they are still being embraced by the Justice Department under President Donald Trump, whose first administration filed the case against Google. Since the change in administrations, the Justice Department has also attempted to cast Google’s immense power as a threat to freedom, too.

“The American dream is about higher values than just cheap goods and ‘free’ online services,” the Justice Department wrote in a March 7 filing with Mehta. “These values include freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom to innovate, and freedom to compete in a market undistorted by the controlling hand of a monopolist.”

Google is arguing the government’s proposed changes are unwarranted under a ruling that its search engine popularity among consumers is one of the main reasons it has become so dominant.

The “unprecedented array of proposed remedies would harm consumers and innovation, as well as future competition in search and search ads in addition to numerous other adjacent markets,” Google lawyers said in a filing leading up to hearings. “They bear little or no relationship to the conduct found anticompetitive, and are contrary to the law.”

Google also is sounding alarms about the proposed requirements to share online search data with rivals and the proposed sale of Chrome posing privacy and security risks. “The breadth and depth of the proposed remedies risks doing significant damage to a complex ecosystem. Some of the proposed remedies would imperil browser developers and jeopardize the digital security of millions of consumers.”

The showdown over Google’s fate marks the climax of the biggest antitrust case in the U.S. since the Justice Department sued Microsoft in the late 1990s for leveraging its Windows software for personal computers to crush potential rivals.

The Microsoft battle culminated in a federal judge declaring the company an illegal monopoly and ordering a partial breakup — a remedy that was eventually overturned by an appeals court.

Google intends to file an appeal of Mehta’s ruling from last year that branded its search engine as an illegal monopoly but can’t do so until the remedy hearings are completed. After closing arguments are presented in late May, Mehta intends to make his decision on the remedies before Labor Day.

The search case marked the first in a succession of antitrust cases that have been brought against a litany of tech giants that include Facebook and Instagram parent Meta Platforms, which is currently fighting allegations of running an illegal monopoly in social media in another Washington D.C. trial. Other antitrust cases have been brought against both Apple and Amazon, too.

The Justice Department also targeted Google’s digital advertising network in a separate antitrust case that resulted last week in another federal judge’s decision that found the company was abusing its power in that market, too. That ruling means Google will be heading into another remedy hearing that could once again raise the specter of a breakup later this year or early next year.

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER, AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump repeated his attacks Monday against the chair of the Federal Reserve, demanding that the central bank lower its key interest rate to boost the economy.

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Trump called Powell “a major loser” and said that energy and grocery prices are “substantially lower” and “there is virtually No Inflation.” Yet Trump said the economy could slow without rate cuts.

Gas prices have fallen for the past two months, in part because oil costs have dropped on fears of slower growth, but food prices jumped in January and March and overall inflation remains above the Fed’s 2% target.

Trump’s comments drove the stock market and the dollar lower as investors in the U.S. and overseas grow increasingly wary about the economic standing of the U.S. On Friday, a top White House adviser said the administration is studying whether it can fire Powell, a move that would undermine the Fed’s independence and likely send shock waves through global financial markets.

Markets, which had already been heading sharply lower Monday, tumbled further after Trump’s post, with the broad S&P 500 stock index down 2% in early trading.

Trump’s threats against Powell and his higher tariff policies have driven down the dollar and also pushed up the interest rate on 10-year Treasuries, which ticked higher to 4.35% Monday. Those rates are the benchmark for mortgage rates, meaning that borrowing costs to buy a house will likely stay elevated.

A drop in the dollar is unusual when stock prices fall and Treasury yields rise, because investors typically buy U.S. government bonds during market turmoil. Instead, they appear to be avoiding U.S. markets generally.

Trump lashed out at Powell on Friday and said he could fire him if he wanted, though it would likely touch off a legal battle that could go to the Supreme Court. Powell has said the president doesn’t have the authority to fire him and has also made clear he won’t step down until his term ends in May 2026.