A highly anticipated Pentagon report has concluded that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth breached departmental policies by sharing classified information in a private Signal group, as stated by a source familiar with the report.
Details of the Incident
The chat group in dispute included particulars about a planned air attack in Yemen targeting Houthi militants. This chat was revealed after a journalist for the Atlantic was included as a participant.
Other individuals in the group allegedly included Senator JD Vance, CIA director John Ratcliffe, and former security advisor Mike Waltz. The report did not examine the conduct of Hegseth, as the other officials are not employed at the Pentagon.
Signal is a publicly available communication application that was not authorized for handling classified information.
Potential Threat to Forces
The internal investigation found that the intelligence shared by Hegseth was secret and posed a risk to the lives of US service members if it had been obtained by a foreign enemy force.
Notably, the report acknowledged that Hegseth had the ability to declassify the material he shared, though it was unclear whether he actually did so.
Secretary's Reaction
The informed individual said that Hegseth refused to be interviewed by the investigators. Instead, he submitted a brief written statement.
In his statement, Hegseth asserted he only disclosed details that would not have endangered personnel or compromised the mission. He added that he had the right to downgrade information and considered the investigation to be partisan.
Future Actions
The completed report has been provided to lawmakers. An unclassified version is expected to be released in the coming days.
