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The inspector general of the Department of Defense (DOD) is launching an investigation into Pentagon secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the encrypted messaging app Signal to discuss sensitive information about military operations in Yemen.
The probe, announced on Thursday, follows a bipartisan request from the Senate armed services committee after allegations emerged that highly precise – and most likely classified – intelligence about impending US airstrikes in Yemen, including strike timing and aircraft models, had been shared in a Signal group chat that included a journalist.
Investigators will also review compliance with classification and records retention requirements – which appear to have been defied by a timer set on the channel.
The investigation will “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”, the memo by acting Pentagon inspector general Steve Stebbins reads.
A spokesperson for the Pentagon declined to comment on ongoing investigations.
The Republican senate armed services committee chair, Roger Wicker, and Democrat ranking member Jack Reed requested the investigation after learning that Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, was included in a Signal group chat with national security council members discussing Yemen operations.
“This chat was alleged to have included classified information pertaining to sensitive military actions in Yemen,” the senators wrote in their letter.
“If true, this reporting raises 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 and need to know.”
The Atlantic published the messages shared by Hegseth on Signal, which included operational details about strikes against Houthi rebel targets in Yemen, such as launch times of F-18 fighter jets, bomb drop timings and naval Tomahawk missile launches – sent before the operation had been carried out.
The White House and Hegseth himself have aggressively maintained that the Signal messages were merely “team updates” lacking classified sources or methods.
Yet the Pentagon’s own classification guidelines suggest the kind of detailed military plans in the Signal chat would typically be classified at least at the “secret” level, while some of the real-time updates could have risen to a higher level of classification. Hegseth’s messages even included the phrase “clean on OPSEC” – operational security – implying he recognized the sensitivity of the information being shared.
Former state department attorney Brian Finucane, who has extensive experience in counter-terrorism operations including strikes against Houthis, told the Guardian the specificity of aircraft information suggests it was classified, and that “in my experience, this kind of pre-operational detail would have been classified”.
The inspector general’s evaluation will be conducted in Washington and at US Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida, with additional locations potentially coming as the investigation proceeds.
