Democrats and their media allies are still pushing the overblown so-called Signal-gate "scandal," in which a journalist was mistakenly invited to a group chat among high-level Trump administration officials earlier this month about impending military operations against Houthi terrorists in Yemen, which the journalist then published after the successful airstrikes occurred.

Among those is Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA), who is demanding that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth resign or be fired, along with other top officials, for allegedly breaching national security and sharing classified information in the chat, according to The Hill.

It seems rather unlikely at this point that President Donald Trump will heed the critical congresswoman's call for him to demand Hegseth's resignation or terminate him, as he has already addressed the situation and downplayed the supposed severity of the mistaken inclusion of the journalist in the group chat.

Dems outraged over purported Signal group chat "scandal"

It was on Monday that The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg claimed to have been inadvertently invited to a group chat on the encrypted Signal app that featured a dozen or so high-level administration officials discussing imminent airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen in response to their repeated terror attacks against commercial shipping and military vessels traversing the Red Sea.

In response to the initial report, Rep. Houlahan, a U.S. Air Force veteran, called out Sec. Hegseth and wrote in an X post, "This stunning lack of operational security by @SecDef is just another illustration of his gross incompetence. He's a danger to the nation and our troops, here and abroad."

"I want an immediate explanation of how this happened and a clear understanding of all the laws broken. I believe the classified information shared in this Signal chat is in direct violation of the Espionage Act, and action by Congress is required," she added.

Call for Hegseth to resign or be fired

Rep. Houlahan, like many of her Democratic colleagues, raised a stink about the purported scandal during a committee hearing with the heads of the nation's intelligence agencies and then later demanded Sec. Hegseth's resignation or firing during an appearance Wednesday on NewsNation, during which she claimed that he and the other officials "absolutely knew better" than to use the Signal app for their discussion.

"We’re talking about literally classified information. The release of classified information in a nonsecure environment is an absolutely impeachable -- literally -- offense," Houlahan said of Hegseth. "And the thing that he ought to be doing, as I mentioned in my hearing testimony, is he ought to be resigning. That’s what a decent, moral person who understands the rules would be doing."

"And he, as a result of probably not resigning, should be removed from office, and I believe President Trump knows that," the congresswoman continued, as did all of her fellow military veterans in Congress on both sides of the aisle, whom she insisted "know what the right thing is to do."

Houlahan added, "In this particular case, it is to resign or to be resigned -- to be removed."

Hegseth says nothing classified was shared; Biden admin approved use of Signal

For his part, according to Fox News, Sec. Hegseth -- along with several other participants in the group chat -- has been adamant that no classified information was shared, as he told reporters on Wednesday in response to Goldberg's breathless claims, "Nobody's texting war plans."

"I noticed this morning, out came something that doesn't look like war plans. And as a matter of fact, they even changed the title to attack plans because they know it's not war plans," he continued of a follow-up report that morning from The Atlantic with screenshots of the conversation. "There's no units, no locations, no routes, no flight paths, no sources, no methods, no classified information."

As for Rep. Houlahan and her issue with the use of the encrypted Signal app for the high-level discussion by top Trump officials, she ought to take that up with her comrades in the former Biden-Harris administration, as they are the ones who specifically approved the Signal app for such purposes, according to Just the News.

Indeed, in a Dec. 2024 guidance memo from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on recommended "best practices" to keep mobile phone communications secure, "highly targeted" officials at risk of foreign espionage were explicitly advised to "Adopt a free messaging application for secure communications that guarantees end-to-end encryption, such as Signal or similar apps."