Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks during his Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on Jan. 14, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Defense Department’s Office of the Inspector General announced Thursday it has opened an investigation into Secretary Pete Hegseth’s highly criticized use of the Signal messaging app to communicate about plans to bomb Yemen.

The evaluation stems from a letter the chairman and ranking member of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, Republican Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Democrat Jack Reed of Rhode Island, sent last week, asking the watchdog agency to look into the matter. 

Acting Defense Department Inspector General Steven A. Stebbins wrote in a memo announcing the investigation that the Inspector General Act of 1978 “authorizes us to have access to personnel and materials as we determine necessary to perform our oversight in a timely manner.”

The purpose of the evaluation, he wrote, “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. Additionally, we will review compliance with classification and records retention requirements.”

The investigation will take place in Washington, D.C., as well as U.S. Central Command Headquarters in Tampa, Florida.

Concerns about the use of Signal, an encrypted messaging app available commercially, began after The Atlantic published an article detailing how its editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was inadvertently added to a group chat exchanging messages about national security plans. The ensuing controversy has been dubbed “Signalgate.”

Vice President J.D. Vance, Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz and others were all in the group.

They were discussing plans for U.S. troops to bomb Houthi rebels in Yemen, which has raised significant concerns about how senior Trump administration officials are communicating and handling classified information. 

An aerial view of the Pentagon on May 12, 2021. (Photo by Air Force Tech. Sgt. Brittany A. Chase/Department of Defense)

WASHINGTON — The chairman and ranking member on the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee sent a letter to the Defense Department inspector general on Thursday asking the independent watchdog to open an investigation into top officials’ use of the Signal chat app to discuss plans for bombing Yemen.

Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker and Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Jack Reed wrote that the group chat, which somehow inadvertently included Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, warranted further inquiry.

“This chat was alleged to have included classified information pertaining to sensitive military actions in Yemen,” the two wrote in the one-page 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.”

They asked the inspector general to include an “assessment of DOD classification and declassification policies and processes and whether these policies and processes were adhered to” as well as a determination of whether anyone “transferred classified information, including operational details, from classified systems to unclassified systems, and if so, how.”

The senators called on the inspector general to figure out if “the policies of the White House, Department of Defense, the intelligence community, and other Departments and agencies represented on the National Security Council on this subject differ.”

The letter requests the inspector general make recommendations to address any issues that might be identified by an investigation.

Signalgate, as it’s become known, began Monday when The Atlantic published excerpts of the group chat that included Vice President J.D. Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz and others.

President Donald Trump and numerous White House officials have repeatedly tried to downplay the use of a commercial communications app to discuss plans to bomb Houthi rebels inside Yemen.

Hegseth has said publicly that no classified information was shared in the group chat, but Wicker told reporters on Wednesday that the “information as published recently appears to me to be of such a sensitive nature that, based on my knowledge, I would have wanted to classify it.”

A spokesperson for the Defense Department Inspector General said the office “received the request yesterday and we are reviewing the letter. We have no further comment at this time.”