The acting Inspector General of the Defense Department will look into 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 stated that the IG’s “evaluation” aims 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 investigation will also look into whether Hegseth met classification and record retention requirements, according to the letter. The review will take place in both Washington, DC and the US Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida, it adds.
The chairman and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee asked Stebbins to conduct an investigation after The Atlantic magazine reported last month that Hegseth and other senior national security officials used the messaging app Signal to plan military strikes against the Houthis in Yemen.
The information Hegseth revealed in the Signal chat, including the exact timing of strikes against the Houthis as well as the types of aircraft and weapons systems that would be used, was highly classified at the time he wrote it, CNN reports.
According to the texts released by The Atlantic, Hegseth shared the information with the group, which included the vice president and national security adviser, 30 minutes before the operation began.
Top US officials have stated that the information shared in the text messages was not classified, and Hegseth’s spokesperson, Sean Parnell, has denied that any classified information was shared.
“These additional Signal chat messages confirm there were no classified materials or war plans shared,” Parnell said the previous week. “The Secretary was simply updating the group on an ongoing plan that had already been briefed via official channels.
The American people see through the Atlantic’s pathetic attempts to divert attention from President Trump’s national security agenda.”
As part of the investigation, Stebbins stated that Hegseth will most likely be required 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, along with more than a dozen other inspectors general at federal agencies, in the first few weeks of his administration.
