The Pentagon inspector general's office says it has launched a probe of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over his use of Signal to discuss military strikes—which was exposed when a journalist was accidentally added to the chat. In a Thursday letter to Hegseth, acting Inspector General Steven Stebbin said the "subject evaluation" was initiated in response to a request from Republican Sen. Roger Wicker and Democratic Sen. Jack Reed, the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, CBS News reports. Wicker and Reed said last week that they would seek an expedited review.
"The objective of this evaluation is to determine the extent to which the Secretary of Defense and other DoD personnel complied with DoD policies and procedures for the use of a commercial messaging application for official business," Stebbins wrote. "Additionally, we will review compliance with classification and records retention requirements." Some of the messages in the chat were reportedly set to disappear after a week. The AP notes that the messaging app is not part of the Pentagon's secure communications network.
In their request to Stebbins, the senators said the "chat was alleged to have included classified information pertaining to sensitive military actions in Yemen," the Guardian reports. They said reports raise "questions as to the use of unclassified networks to discuss sensitive and classified information, as well as the sharing of such information with those who do not have proper clearance." Hegseth and other officials have insisted that the information shared on Signal—including the timing of warplane launches before the planes were in the air—was not classified. (More Signal breach stories.)
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