A long-awaited Department of Defense review has determined that Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth breached official protocols by disclosing secret intelligence in a private Signal group, according to a source familiar with the report.
Details of the Event
The chat group in dispute included details about a scheduled airstrike in Yemen against Houthi fighters. This chat was revealed after a journalist for the Atlantic was added as a participant.
Other officials in the group allegedly included Senator JD Vance, CIA director John Ratcliffe, and then-national security adviser Mike Waltz. The report did not examine the conduct of Hegseth, as the other participants are not employed at the Department of Defense.
Signal is a publicly available messaging app that was not approved for handling classified information.
Serious Risk to Forces
The internal investigation found that the information shared by Hegseth was secret and could have endangered the safety of US service members if it had been obtained by a hostile nation.
Notably, the document also noted that Hegseth had the ability to declassify the material he shared, though it was not specified whether he actually did so.
Hegseth's Reaction
The informed individual indicated that Hegseth refused to be interviewed by the investigators. Instead, he submitted a brief written statement.
In his response, Hegseth claimed he only shared details that would not have endangered personnel or compromised the operation. He added that he possessed the authority to downgrade information and considered the investigation to be partisan.
Next Steps
The completed report has been shared with Congress. An unclassified version is anticipated to be made public later this week.
