Pentagon’s Signalgate report finds Pete Hegseth violated military policies
It’s been months since a group of Trump administration officials hosted a Signal group chat to discuss classified military intelligence ahead of a military strike in Yemen, while inadvertently adding a reporter, and now the Pentagon’s inspector general has released his report on the mess. The results of Steven Stebbins’ eight-month investigation revealed that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth failed to comply with DoD policies by “using an unapproved, commercially available messaging application to send nonpublic DoD information.”
It also said it risked compromising “sensitive DoD information” as a result, but only recommended a review of classification procedures, and said another report recommended “corrective actions” that, if implemented and followed, would be consistent with the department’s requirements.
The 84-page report, available in full here, shows that Hegseth himself responded to the investigation with a statement in July saying he shared “general, non-specific details” about the strike and declined interview requests.
The investigation also had to rely on the journalist’s reports added to the chat, The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, because its auto-delete feature only allowed them to recover certain discussions.
We have requested that DoD provide a copy of the Secretary’s communications on Signal on or about
March 15, 2025. DoD provided a partial copy of messages from the secretary’s personal cell phone,
including some posts previously reported by The Atlantic, but other posts were automatically removed because
chat settings. Therefore, we had to rely in part on the transcript of the conversation publicly published by The Atlantic (“Houthi PC Small Group”) for a complete account.
In a tweet posted Wednesday evening, Hegseth claimed the report showed “No classified information. Total exoneration.” However, Sen. Mark Kelly, a ranking member of the Arizona Armed Services Committee, told reporters today, “He said he violated some DOD regulations…so if it violates the law, you have to find out.” »
