The Pentagon’s independent watchdog announced Thursday that it will launch an investigation into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the commercial messaging app Signal to discuss upcoming military strikes against Houthi militants in Yemen.
In a letter to Mr. Hegseth, acting Inspector General Steven A. Stebbins said his office is responding to a request from Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, respectively the Republican chairman and the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“The objective of this evaluation is to determine the extent to which the Secretary of Defense and other [Defense Department] personnel complied with [Defense Department] policies and procedures for the use of a commercial messaging application for official business,” Mr. Stebbins wrote in the letter.
“Additionally, we will review compliance with classification and records retention requirements,” Mr. Stebbins said.
Last week, Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of The Atlantic, said he had been added to a Signal chat group that included several senior Trump administration officials, including Mr. Hegseth, Vice President J.D. Vance, and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz.
Mr. Goldberg wrote that the online discussion included U.S. military plans to strike Houthi targets in Yemen in mid-March.
“This chat was alleged to have included classified information pertaining to sensitive military actions in Yemen,” Mr. Reed and Mr. Wicker wrote in their letter.
“If true, this reporting raises questions as to the use of unclassified networks to discuss sensitive and classified information, as well as the sharing of such information with those who do not have proper clearance and need to know,” the two men wrote.
Top Democrats on Capitol Hill want Attorney General Pam Bondi to appoint a special counsel to investigate what they consider a national security breach over the group’s use of the Signal app.
“In addition to the reckless inclusion of a journalist in the chat, we are deeply concerned about this serious breach in the proper handling of such information and deliberations,” wrote the Democratic senators, who included Tammy Duckworth and Democratic Whip Richard J. Durbin, both from Illinois.
“Appointment of a Special Counsel is appropriate where the Department may have a conflict of interest or extraordinary circumstances are present, a criminal investigation is warranted and it is in the public interest to appoint an outside Special Counsel to investigate the matter,” the Democratic senators wrote.
Mr. Hegseth pushed back against claims that he and other Trump administration officials were recklessly spilling military details on Signal.
“The Atlantic released the so-called ’war plans’ and those ’plans’ include: No names. No targets. No locations. No units. No routes. No sources. No methods – and no classified information,” Mr. Hegseth wrote last week on X. “This only proves one things: Jeff Goldberg has never seen a war plan or an ’attack plan’ as he now calls it.”
Mr. Stebbins, the Pentagon’s IG, said his investigation will be conducted in Washington and U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida.
“We may identify additional locations during the evaluation,” he wrote. “We may revise the objective as the evaluation proceeds.”
