U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., points to text messages by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during an annual worldwide threats assessment hearing at the Longworth House Office Building on March 26, 2025 in Washington, DC. The hearing held by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence addressed top aides inadvertently including Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief for The Atlantic magazine, on a high level Trump administration Signal group chat discussing plans to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth violated official policy when he used the publicly available Signal app to message about military plans from his personal cell phone, including imminent bombings in Yemen, according to a report released Thursday by the Pentagon’s own watchdog.
The Defense Department Inspector General’s 84-page report concluded Hegseth sent information about the “strike times of manned U.S. aircraft over hostile territory over an unapproved, unsecure network approximately 2 to 4 hours before the execution of those strikes.”
“Although the Secretary wrote in his July 25 statement to the DoD OIG that ‘there were no details that would endanger our troops or the mission,’ if this information had fallen into the hands of U.S. adversaries, Houthi forces might have been able to counter U.S. forces or reposition personnel and assets to avoid planned U.S. strikes,” the report states. “Even though these events did not ultimately occur, the Secretary’s actions created a risk to operational security that could have resulted in failed U.S. mission objectives and potential harm to U.S. pilots.”
Members of Congress from both political parties requested the Defense Department Inspector General look into Hegseth’s use of Signal after a journalist at The Atlantic was inadvertently added to a group chat of national security officials planning the bombing in Yemen. Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg later published a series of stories detailing the messages.
Acting Defense Department Inspector General Steven A. Stebbins released a memo in April announcing he had opened an investigation into the matter.
GOP wants more Pentagon tech, Dems want Hegseth gone
Members of Congress’ reaction to the report was mixed, with Republicans suggesting more technology is needed for the Pentagon, while Democrats called for Hegseth to resign.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., issued a statement saying the report shows Hegseth “acted within his authority to communicate the information in question to other cabinet level officials.”
“It is also clear to me that our senior leaders need more tools available to them to communicate classified information in real time and a variety of environments,” Wicker added. “I think we have some work to do in providing those tools to our national security leaders.”
Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Jack Reed, D-R.I., said in a statement the report confirms “that Secretary Hegseth violated military regulations and continues to show reckless disregard for the safety of American servicemembers.”
“For months, Secretary Hegseth has attempted to mislead Congress and the American people, claiming repeatedly that no classified information was involved,” Reed said. “The Inspector General has now definitively cast doubt on those false assurances.”
Reed added that Hegseth should “explain himself to Congress, the public, and the servicemembers he leads. The men and women of our armed forces deserve leadership they can trust with their lives.”
Hegseth refuses to give cell phone to investigators
The Inspector General report said Hegseth declined to sit for an interview with the Defense Department’s oversight agency, that he refused to hand over his personal cell phone to investigators and that he didn’t retain some of the messages in accordance with federal recordkeeping requirements.
Officials working for Hegseth shared copies of the Signal chat with the inspector general, but those were incomplete since the app’s auto-delete feature was on at the time. Signal users can adjust that for different lengths of time or turn it off completely.
Hegseth was in the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF, in his home the morning and early afternoon of March 15 to monitor “the operation against the Houthis,” according to the report.
Two aides who were with Hegseth at the time told investigators he used “secure, classified” systems to communicate with United States Central Command officials “during the planning and execution of the strikes against Houthi targets that day and reviewed information related to the strikes.”
“In the SCIF, the Secretary had access to multiple means of secure communication that allowed him to provide the necessary operational details and updates to non-DoD government officials on the Signal group chat,” the report states.
The group chat about the Yemen bombing that accidentally included a journalist wasn’t the only one Hegseth used to communicate about official Pentagon business from his personal phone.
Eight officials within the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Office of the Chief Information Officer told investigators that Hegseth created “multiple Signal group chats in which the Secretary and others allegedly discussed official DoD business and nonpublic information.”
“One of the officials we spoke with stated that the Secretary posted the same sensitive operational information concerning the Houthi attack plans on the ‘Defense Team Huddle’ group chat,” the report states, later adding Hegseth declined to provide any information about that chat.
The Inspector General opted not to make any recommendations about the use of Signal in the report, since “records management issues arising from the use of Signal and other commercially available messaging applications are a DoD-wide issue.”
A previous inspector general report also called on the department to “improve training for DoD senior officials on compliance with records retention laws and policies.”
Alabama’s Rogers says mission not compromised
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., wrote in a statement that it is “important to remember that this was a successful operation that took out a dangerous target with no harm to U.S. troops. It’s clear that the discussion on Signal didn’t compromise the mission.”
“During the past few administrations, the use of Signal for communication between government officials has grown, so I appreciate the comprehensive work by the IG to develop recommendations on how to improve and secure communications,” Rogers said. “I encourage the Administration to follow these recommendations, and I look forward to discussions with the Pentagon on how to implement them.”
House Armed Services Committee ranking member Adam Smith, D-Wash., called the report “a damning review of an incompetent secretary of defense who is profoundly incapable of the job and clearly has no respect for or comprehension of what is required to safeguard our service members.”
“It confirms staggering violations of policy – namely that unsecured platforms were used by the secretary to boast about sensitive operational details that could have jeopardized both the mission and, more importantly, the lives of American service members tasked with carrying out Operation Rough Rider,” Smith said.
‘A fireable offense for anyone else in the Department of Defense’
Senate Defense Appropriations subcommittee ranking member Chris Coons, D-Del., said in a statement the report “concluded that Secretary Hegseth violated DOD procedure and put service members’ lives at risk with his reckless mishandling of sensitive information.”
“In March, I led a group of senators in pressing the Trump administration to investigate this blatant misconduct. Any service member who acted with such disregard for our national security would be dismissed, at the very least,” Coons said. “Our nation’s highest ranking defense official should not be held to a lower standard than the men and women he oversees. For the good of our nation, I once again call on Secretary Hegseth to resign.”
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence ranking member Jim Himes, D-Conn., said in a statement the report “confirms what I feared when this Signal thread became public: We are fortunate that the mission was not compromised and that servicemembers were not put at needless risk thanks to Secretary Hegseth’s reckless treatment of classified information.”
“Pete Hegseth’s behavior and lack of judgment would be a fireable offense for anyone else in the Department of Defense,” Himes said. “What’s more, his refusal to sit for an interview with the Inspector General or submit his device for examination is yet another example of his failure to take responsibility for his actions.”
