A highly anticipated Department of Defense review has concluded that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth breached departmental policies by sharing classified intelligence in a private Signal group, as stated by a source familiar with the report.
Details of the Event
The chat group in dispute contained details about a scheduled airstrike in Yemen against Houthi militants. This chat was revealed after a reporter for the Atlantic was added as a participant.
Other officials in the chat allegedly included Senator JD Vance, CIA director John Ratcliffe, and then-national security adviser Mike Waltz. The report focused solely on the conduct of Hegseth, as the other officials are not employed at the Department of Defense.
Signal is a publicly available communication application that was not authorized for transmitting classified information.
Potential Risk to Forces
The inspector general's report determined that the intelligence shared by Hegseth was classified and could have endangered the lives of US service members if it had been intercepted by a hostile nation.
However, the document also noted that Hegseth possessed the authority to declassify the material he shared, though it was unclear whether he formally exercised that authority.
Secretary's Response
The informed individual said that Hegseth refused to be interviewed by the inspector general. Instead, he provided a brief written statement.
In his statement, Hegseth asserted he only shared information that would not have risked lives or compromised the mission. He added that he possessed the authority to downgrade information and considered the inspector general to be partisan.
Future Actions
The completed report has been provided to Congress. An publicly releasable copy is anticipated to be made public later this week.
