Pentagon IG notifies Hegseth of 'Signalgate' investigation

The Pentagon inspector general’s office has sent a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth notifying him that an investigation has begun into the so-called "Signalgate" controversy at the behest of two senior senators.

The IG says its investigation, initiated at the request of Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Ranking Member Jack Reed (D-RI) will focus on “recent public reporting on the Secretary of Defense's use of an unclassified commercially available messaging application to discuss information pertaining to military actions in Yemen in March 2025.”

Last month, The Atlantic reported that senior members of President Trump’s cabinet, including Hegseth, discussed military plans and operations related to a March 15 airstrike against Houthi militants in Yemen over Signal, a commercial messaging app, and mistakenly included Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the magazine, in the group chat while active military missions were discussed and executed.

Atlantic later published additional information that was allegedly introduced to the text chain by Hegseth and included a timeline for the imminent attack and what U.S. weapons were to be used.

The objective of the investigation, according to the IG, is to determine the extent to which Hegseth and other DOD officials complied with policies and procedures “for the use of a commercial messaging application for official business” and whether officials complied with classification and records retention requirements.

Congressional Democrats have been most vocal in their criticism of Hegseth and national security adviser Mike Waltz, who created the text chain that inadvertently exposed sensitive attack plans to a journalist.

Hegseth maintains that he did not discuss classified information in the text chain.

“No names. No targets. No locations. No units. No routes. No sources. No methods,” he wrote on X. “And no classified information.”