Pentagon To Review Defense Secretary’s Usage Of Signal Chat App
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
WASHINGTON (Worthy News) – The Pentagon’s acting inspector general announced Thursday that he would review U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the Signal messaging application to convey potentially classified plans for a military strike against Houthi militants in Yemen.
The pressure on Hegseth came on a tense day when, in a separate case, officials confirmed that U.S. President Donald J. Trump moved to fire several White House National Security Council officials.
The review announced Thursday will examine other defense officials’ use of the publicly available encrypted Signal application, which cannot handle classified material and is not part of the Defense Department’s secure network.
Hegseth had previously reacted angrily when asked to respond to The Atlantic magazine’s revelations of the recent Signal conversation.
The review comes after national security adviser Mike Waltz mistakenly added journalist Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic to a Signal group chat that included top officials discussing the March 15 operation, including Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
In a notification letter to Hegseth, Acting Inspector General Steven Stebbins said the review will assess “the extent to which the Secretary of Defense and other [Department of Defense] DoD personnel complied with DoD policies and procedures for using a commercial messaging application for official business.”
Worthy News learned that the review will also examine whether officials complied with classification and federal records retention requirements.
CLASSIFIED INFORMATION
Signal, while encrypted, is not part of the Department of Defense’s secure communications network and cannot be used for classified information, officials said.
Hegseth is said to have shared the exact timings for the military strike—details that, according to former officials, would typically be considered classified.
In another security development, U.S. President Trump decided to dismiss several White House National Security Council officials after beingurged by internet personality Laura Loomer to purge staffers deemed “insufficiently committed” to his Make America Great Again agenda, several people familiar with the matter said Thursday.
At least six White House National Security Council (NSC) officials were “fired or reassigned,” according to several sources with close knowledge about the situation.
Critics see the shakeup at the NSC, which advises the president on the country’s most important security challenges, as Trump’s first significant purge since his inauguration as the 47th president in January.
It comes at a volatile geopolitical moment, one day after the Trump administration slapped significant tariffs on almost every country in the world and as the administration struggles to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine while facing challenges in the Middle East and Asia.
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