It has been months since a group of Trump administration officials put together a Signal group chat to discuss classified military intelligence ahead of a military strike in Yemen while inadvertently adding a journalist, and now the Pentagon’s inspector general has released its report on the mess. The results of Steven Stebbins’ eight-month-long investigation found that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth did not comply with DoD policies by “using a nonapproved commercially available messaging application to send nonpublic DoD information.”
It also said that he risked potential compromise of “sensitive DoD information” as a result, but only recommended a review of classification procedures, and said that another report recommended “corrective actions” that, if implemented and adhered to, would comply with the department’s requirements.
The 84-page report, available in full here, shows that Hegseth himself responded to the investigation with a statement in July that said he’d shared “nonspecific general details” about the strike, and declined interview requests.
The investigation also had to rely on reporting from the journalist added to the chat, The Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg, as its auto-delete function only made it possible for them to retrieve some of the discussions.
We requested that the DoD provide a copy of the Secretary’s communications on Signal on or about
March 15, 2025. The DoD provided a partial copy of messages from the Secretary’s personal cell phone,
including some messages that The Atlantic previously reported, but other messages had auto-deleted because
of chat settings. Therefore, we had to rely in part on the transcript of the chat The Atlantic posted publicly (“Houthi PC Small Group”) for a full record.
In a tweet posted Wednesday evening, Hegseth claimed the report showed “No classified information. Total exoneration.” However, Armed Services Committee member Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona told reporters today that “It said he was in violation of some DOD regulations…so whether that’s breaking the law, you got to figure that out.”
