Sources: Pentagon watchdogs find Hegseth endangered troops with Signal chat leak

Sources say IG report found Hegseth risked endangering troops by sharing military plans in Signal chat.

Following an 8-month investigation, the Defense Department Inspector General is ready to release its report on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the messaging app Signal. Back in March, the US military was carrying out strikes on Yemen to counter the Houthis, the armed group that controls most of the country. Before the attacks got underway, Hegseth shared exact attack plans on Signal in a group chat with other Cabinet members, as well as on a second group chat that included members of his family and his personal attorney.

News of the Cabinet members’ group chat came to light after then-National Security Advisor Mike Waltz inadvertently added journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to the chat. Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, later published an article detailing what was shared in the chat and who was participating. Waltz later resigned his position and is now US Ambassador to the UN. News of the second group chat where Hegseth shared sensitive intelligence on the strike emerged a few weeks later.

The DDOIG has delivered a classified version of its report to members of Congress as well as to Hegseth. A declassified version may be published as soon as Thursday. Officials familiar with the classified version told CNN that the DDOIG found that Hegseth’s use of Signal in this instance risked putting US troops in danger. Furthermore, the report found there was no evidence that Hegseth had declassified information relayed to him by the general overseeing the operation before sharing it in both group chats.

More scrutiny for Hegseth

The report comes as members of Congress, including Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker (who heads the Senate Armed Services Committee), are already scrutinizing Hegseth’s fitness for office. Congressional committees are probing reports that the Navy carried out a “double tap” strike to kill survivors of a first strike on a Caribbean boat in September. They apparently carried out this strike to fulfill Hegseth’s orders to leave no survivors. Strikes on defenseless adversaries are war crimes in violation of the Geneva Convention. The White House has admitted the second strike occurred, but claim it was lawful. After initially denying the reports, Hegseth now says he couldn’t see the survivors due to “the fog of war”.

Hegseth has previously said he wanted to throw out the “rules of engagement” which protect civilians in war. In his own book, published last year, Hegseth boasted about telling troops under his command during the Iraq war to disregard legal advice on the rules of engagement.