A report by the Pentagon’s acting inspector general concluded that US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, using a private messaging app to discuss airstrikes expected to be carried out by US forces in Yemen earlier this year, put US forces at risk, according to two people familiar with the findings.
- Context: The Pentagon chief discussed the secret attack plan in Yemen in a social media group that included his brother and wife
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The report, set to be made public on Thursday, examined Hegseth’s participation in a Signal chat group with other senior Trump administration officials — a group that became public after a journalist was mistakenly added and wrote about the episode.
The Pentagon’s internal investigation concluded that Hegseth’s use of the app created a risk of compromising Defense Department information that could put military personnel and operations at risk if disclosed to foreign adversaries, according to two people familiar with the document who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The report also said that Hegseth declined to be interviewed by the inspector general about the matter, instead providing only a brief written statement, these people said. A classified copy of the report was delivered on Wednesday to a small group of members of Congress in a secure room.
In March, then-national security adviser Michael Waltz mistakenly added Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, to a group on Signal called the “Houthi PC Small Group,” which included Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and White House counsel Stephen Miller.
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In the report, the Defense Minister laid out a detailed timeline for airstrikes against Houthi fighters and infrastructure in Yemen just two hours before the first bombs fell on March 15. The air campaign, which the Pentagon called Operation Rough Rider, lasted about six weeks, during which the United States struck more than 800 targets in Yemen, using nearly $1.5 billion in weapons.
The Inspector General’s Office announced April 3 that it would review Hegseth’s use of Signal. Later that month, it emerged that he had inappropriately shared sensitive information in a second Signal group that included his wife, brother, and personal lawyer. The agency said at the time that it would conduct an “evaluation” of Hegseth’s conduct — a term used to describe reviews of non-criminal violations of Defense Department policies, and distinct from an “investigation,” which is opened when criminal action is suspected.
The office is headed by Stephen A. Stebbins, who took office on an interim basis after Trump fired his predecessor, Robert P. Storch, as part of a wave of executive firings of inspectors general carried out by the president just four days after taking office in January.
- In full: The magazine publishes a top-secret exchange of letters to prove that US officials shared detailed information before the attack
The investigation did not examine whether Hegseth’s use of the app was broader, nor whether additional sensitive information was shared with unauthorized people. The report also did not address whether any of the information was confidential at the time it was shared. However, it noted that Hegseth, as Defense Secretary, had the authority to determine the degree of confidentiality of information and had not analyzed whether he had sought to declassify the material before discussing it on an unauthorized messaging platform.
Investigators also concluded that not all of the messages were properly preserved in accordance with the Federal Records Act, and therefore relied extensively on publicly available information about the conversations.
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The report’s release caps a difficult week for Hegseth, who was the target of criticism related to a series of airstrikes on Sept. 2 by Joint Special Operations Command against a small motorboat in the Caribbean Sea that the Pentagon said was smuggling drugs.
The two congressional committees overseeing the Defense Department have launched bipartisan investigations into Hegseth’s actions in connection with the second wave of attacks on survivors of the first attack — including suspicion that he ordered the bombings so as to leave no survivors, which may constitute a violation of international law.