U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, R-Ill., points to text messages sent by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth during the annual Global Threat Assessment hearing at Longworth House on March 26, 2025, in Washington. The hearing, organized by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, inadvertently featured top advisers, including Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine, in a high-level Trump administration Signal group chat discussing plans to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen. (Photo: Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON – Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth violated official policy by using the publicly available Signal app to send information about military plans, including impending bombings in Yemen, from his personal cellphone, according to a report released Thursday by a Pentagon watchdog.
Inspector General of the Department of Defense 84-page report concluded that Hegseth sent information about “hours of U.S. manned aircraft strikes over hostile territory over an unapproved and unsecured network approximately 2 to 4 hours before these strikes were carried out.”
“Although the Secretary wrote in his July 25 statement to the Department of Defense OIG that ‘there are no details that would jeopardize our warfighters or the mission,’ if this information had fallen into the hands of U.S. adversaries, Houthi forces may have been able to counter U.S. forces or reposition personnel and assets to avoid planned U.S. attacks,” the report states. “Although these events ultimately did not occur, the Secretary’s actions created operational security risks that could have resulted in the failure of U.S. mission objectives and potential harm to U.S. pilots.”
Members of Congress from both political parties required The Defense Department’s inspector general is looking into Hegseth’s employ of Signal after a journalist from The Atlantic did so. accidentally added to a group chat national security officials planning a bomb attack in Yemen. Later editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg published a series of low stories describing the news in detail.
Acting Inspector General of the Department of Defense Steven A. Stebbins published a note in April he announced that he had launched an investigation into the matter.
GOP wants more Pentagon tech, Democrats want Hegseth gone
Reaction from members of Congress to the report was mixed, with Republicans suggesting the Pentagon needed more technology and Democrats calling on Hegseth to resign.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker issued a statement saying the report showed Hegseth “acted within his authority when he provided the information in question to other Cabinet-level officials.”
“It is also clear to me that our senior leaders need more tools available to communicate classified information in real time and in a variety of environments,” Wicker added. “I think we have some work to do in providing these tools to our national security leaders.”
Jack Reed, D-Ill., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement that the report confirms “that Secretary Hegseth violated military regulations and continues to demonstrate reckless disregard for the safety of America’s troops.”
“For months, Secretary Hegseth has attempted to mislead Congress and the American people by repeatedly claiming that no classified information was involved,” Reed said. “The Inspector General ultimately questioned these false assurances.”
Reed added that Hegseth should “explain himself to Congress, the public and the soldiers he leads. The men and women of our armed forces deserve leadership they can trust with their lives.”
Hegseth refuses to give investigators his cell phone
The inspector general’s report found that Hegseth refused to appear for an interview with a Defense Department surveillance agency, to give investigators his personal cellphone and that he failed to retain certain communications in accordance with federal recordkeeping requirements.
Officials working for Hegseth provided copies of the Signal chat to the inspector general, but they were incomplete because the app’s auto-delete feature was turned on at the time. Signal users can set this for different periods of time or turn it off completely.
The report said Hegseth was at his home in the Sensitive Information Facility (SCIF) on the morning and early afternoon of March 15 to monitor the “anti-Houthi operation.”
Two advisers who were with Hegseth at the time told investigators that he used “secure, classified” systems to communicate with U.S. Central Command officials “while planning and executing attacks on Houthi targets that day and reviewed information related to the attacks.”
“At SCIF, the Secretary had access to multiple means of secure communication that allowed him to communicate necessary operational details and updates to government officials outside the Department of Defense in the Signal group chat,” the report said.
The group chat about the Yemen bombing, which the journalist accidentally participated in, was not the only one in which Hegseth communicated from his personal phone about official Pentagon business.
Eight officials from 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 purportedly discussed official Department of Defense business and nonpublic information.”
“One of the officials we spoke with stated that the Secretary posted the same sensitive operational information regarding Houthi attack plans in the ‘Defense Team Huddle’ group chat,” the report said, later adding that Hegseth declined to provide any information about the chat.
The Inspector General chose not to make any recommendations regarding the employ of Signal in the report because “records management issues resulting from the use of Signal and other commercially available messaging applications are a Department of Defense-wide problem.”
A previous inspector general report also called on the department to “improve training for senior DoD officials on compliance with record retention regulations and policies.”
Rogers, from Alabama, says the mission is not in jeopardy
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 resulted in the destruction of a dangerous target without harm to U.S. troops. It is clear that the discussion about Signal did not jeopardize the mission.”
“The use of Signal for communications between government officials has increased over the last several administrations, and I appreciate the IG’s comprehensive work to develop recommendations to improve and secure communications,” Rogers said. “I encourage the administration to follow these recommendations and 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 by an incompetent secretary of defense who is completely incapable of the job and clearly has no respect or understanding of what is required to protect our service members.”
“It confirms gross violations of policy, namely that the Secretary used unsecured platforms to brag about sensitive operational details that could have endangered both the mission and, more importantly, the lives of the American soldiers tasked with conducting Operation Rough Rider,” Smith said.
“A criminal offense for anyone else in the Department of Defense.”
Senate Defense Appropriations subcommittee ranking member Chris Coons, D-Del., said in a statement that the report “found that Secretary Hegseth violated Department of Defense process and endangered the lives of service members by recklessly mishandling confidential information.”
“In March, I led a group of senators who pressed the Trump administration to investigate this egregious misconduct. Any service member who acted with such disregard for our national security would be, at a minimum, fired,” 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 member Jim Himes, R-Conn., said in a statement that the report “confirms what I feared when this ‘Signal’ story became public: We are fortunate that the mission was not compromised and that soldiers were not placed at unnecessary risk by Secretary Hegseth’s reckless handling of classified information.”
“Pete Hegseth’s behavior and lack of judgment would be a serious offense for any other Department of Defense employee,” Himes said. “Moreover, refusing to appear for an interview with the Inspector General or to have the device examined is another example of not taking responsibility for one’s actions.”
