Report: Hegseth risked employee safety

TT

Published 19.18

 

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Photo: Hasnoor Hussain/AP/TT

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth discussed airstrikes against Yemen in a chat group on Signal – where a journalist was invited.

Now a report from the Pentagon states that the chat could have risked the safety of employees at the Department of Defense.

In March, the American magazine The Atlantic revealed that, among others, then-national security adviser Mike Waltz, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard and Vice President JD Vance discussed impending airstrikes against the Iran-backed Houthi movement in Yemen on Signal. For unknown reasons, The Atlantic's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg had been invited to the chat group.

A Pentagon report on the incident was released Thursday, concluding that Hegseth compromised sensitive information when he shared details in the chat via his personal phone.

The independent investigators write that the defense secretary had the right to declassify the information he shared, but that using the personal phone “risks exposing sensitive Department of Defense information, which could harm the department’s personnel and mission objectives.”

“This entire situation has been politicized by the media and by those who seek to obstruct and sabotage the government by creating a false narrative,” Hegseth said in a written comment included in the report.

Mike Waltz, who was responsible for the chat, was forced to resign from his post after the affair. Last fall, he was appointed U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.