Pentagon watchdog launches probe of Hegseth Signal messages
By Natasha Bertrand, CNN
(CNN) — The acting Inspector General of the Defense Department will review Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s use of Signal in a group chat with other key national security officials to discuss military strikes against the Houthis in Yemen last month, the IG’s office announced on Thursday.
In a letter to Hegseth, Acting Inspector General Steven Stebbins wrote that the objective of the IG’s “evaluation” is to determine whether Hegseth and other Pentagon personnel “complied with DoD policies and procedures for the use of a commercial messaging application for official business.”
The probe will also examine whether Hegseth complied with classification and records retention requirements, the letter says. The review will take place both in Washington, DC and at US Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida, it adds.
The chairman and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee requested that Stebbins conduct a review after The Atlantic magazine reported last month that Hegseth and other senior national security officials used the messaging app Signal to discuss military strikes against the Houthis in Yemen.
The information Hegseth disclosed in the Signal chat, including the exact timing of strikes against the Houthis and the kinds of aircraft and weapons systems that would be used, was highly classified at the time he wrote it, CNN has reported. Hegseth shared the information with the group, which included the vice president and the national security adviser, 30 minutes before the operation began, the texts released by The Atlantic showed.
Top US officials have said the information shared in the text messages was not classified, and Hegseth’s spokesperson Sean Parnell also denied that any classified information was shared.
“These additional Signal chat messages confirm there were no classified materials or war plans shared,” Parnell said last week. “The Secretary was merely updating the group on a plan that was underway and had already been briefed through official channels. The American people see through the Atlantic’s pathetic attempts to distract from President Trump’s national security agenda.”
As part of the investigation, Stebbins indicated that Hegseth will likely have to turn over materials for the IG to review.
Stebbins, who previously served as the Pentagon’s deputy inspector general, was appointed acting IG after Trump fired Robert Storch, who was fired by Trump along with more than a dozen other inspectors general at federal agencies in the first few weeks of the Trump administration.
The-CNN-Wire
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