A long-awaited Pentagon review has determined that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth violated official protocols by sharing secret information in a Signal messaging chat, as stated by a person briefed on the findings.
Details of the Event
The chat group in dispute included details about a planned air attack in Yemen targeting Houthi militants. This chat was revealed after a journalist for the Atlantic was added as a participant.
Other individuals in the chat allegedly included Senator JD Vance, CIA director John Ratcliffe, and then-national security adviser Mike Waltz. The investigation did not examine the conduct of Hegseth, as the other officials are not employed at the Pentagon.
Signal is a publicly available communication application that was not approved for handling sensitive material.
Potential Risk to Troops
The inspector general's report found that the information shared by Hegseth was secret and posed a risk to the lives of US troops if it had been intercepted by a foreign enemy force.
Notably, the document also noted that Hegseth had the ability to declassify the material he distributed, though it was not specified whether he formally exercised that authority.
Secretary's Response
The source indicated that Hegseth refused to be interviewed by the inspector general. Instead, he submitted a short written response.
In his statement, Hegseth claimed he only shared details that would not have endangered personnel or jeopardized the mission. He further stated that he possessed the authority to declassify material and considered the inspector general to be partisan.
Future Actions
The completed report has been shared with Congress. An unclassified version is anticipated to be made public later this week.
