Pentagon watchdog to investigate US defence chief's use of Signal for Yemen strike plans

THE PENTAGON INSPECTOR general’s office will investigate US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the Signal messaging app to discuss plans for a military strike on Yemen.

The scandal surrounding the use of the app by Donald Trump’s top national security officials – and the questions over how the editor of The Atlantic magazine was accidentally added to the group chat – has rocked the US President’s administration.

According to a memo from the acting inspector general Steven Stebbins, the probe will evaluate “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 said the investigation will also “review compliance with classification and records retention requirements”.

It said the investigation is in response to a request from the top two members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, a Republican and a Democrat.

The White House has reacted defiantly to the scandal by denying any wrongdoing and attacking Jeffrey Goldberg, the journalist who was inadvertently added to the group chat. 

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US National Security adviser Michael Waltz has admitted being responsible for Goldberg being added to the group chat, titled “Houthi PC small group”. 

Trump has already said he will not “fire people” over the controversy, which he dubbed “fake news”. 

Last week, after the White House attempted to dismiss the story as a “hoax”, The Atlantic published the entire text of the chat group, citing “assertions made by numerous administration officials that we are lying about the content of the Signal texts”.

The details were all laid out in screenshots of the chat, including Hegseth laying out the weather conditions, the times that the attacks would take place and the types of aircraft being used. 

The texting was done barely half an hour before the first US warplanes took off and two hours before the first target, described as “Target Terrorist,” was expected to be bombed.

The Atlantic initially did not publish the precise details of the chat, saying it wanted to avoid revealing classified material and information that could endanger American troops, including the name of a CIA intelligence officer. 

Its publication last week included everything in the Signal chain other than that one CIA name.

A US judge subsequently ordered the Trump administration to “preserve all Signal communication between 11 March and 15 March.”

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The dates cover the period between when Waltz set up the chat – and mistakenly added Goldberg – and the day of deadly US air strikes on the Houthis.

District Judge James Boasberg also ordered the government to file details showing the steps it had taken to preserve the messages.

The Atlantic said that Waltz had set some of the Signal messages to disappear after one week, and others after four, saying it raised questions about whether federal records law was violated.

Trump has largely pinned the blame on Waltz, but has also dismissed calls by Democrats for top officials to resign and insisted instead on what he called the success of the raids on the Houthi rebels.

The Houthis began targeting shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden after the current conflict in Gaza began in 2023, claiming solidarity with Palestinians.

With reporting from © AFP 2025

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