Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s team on Tuesday denounced the Pentagon’s internal review of his actions in the “Signalgate” affair, calling the independent inquiry “clearly a political witch hunt” and asserting without evidence that details of the nonpartisan review were leaked to the news media by “Biden administration holdovers.”

The remarks appeared in a written statement by Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell, who also acknowledged for the first time publicly that Hegseth has provided a statement to the Defense Department inspector general’s team that makes clear his belief that “this entire exercise is a sham, conducted in bad faith and with extreme bias.”