Pentagon IG Concludes Pete Hegseth Risked Sensitive Information, Could Have Endangered Troops

CNN reported on the contents of the Pentagon Inspector General’s report into Pete Hegseth’s use of Signal early in his time running the Pentagon, including in a group chat with journalist Jeffrey Goldberg and Hegseth’s wife, among others, in which he discussed the U.S. bombing of Yemen.

Anchor Dana Bash broke the news during her Wednesday show, “Straight to Zach Cohen, who has the story. Zach, what are we learning?”

Cohen replied, “Yeah, Dana, this report is still classified. It has not been publicly released yet, but sources are telling me and our colleague Jake Tapper that the Inspector General for the Pentagon did conclude that Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, risked compromising sensitive military information, which could have endangered American troops and risked mission objectives when he used Signal to share that information about an ongoing military operation targeting the Houthi rebels in Yemen. That was back in March.” He added:

You may remember that these messages were revealed after Atlantic reporter Jeffrey Goldberg was accidentally added to this Signal group chat. And some of these messages are so specific—one of them even saying, from Hegseth, quote, “This is the exact time the bombs will drop.”

So the Inspector General has been investigating Hegseth’s use of Signal for several months now, since April. And we’re now finding that he came to the same conclusion that many of the critics—current and former U.S. officials—did at the time: that Hegseth should not have been using Signal to communicate this sensitive information to other Trump officials, and that the potential consequences of that could have been dire.

The IG also concluded, too, that there was no documentation, as far as they could find, that Hegseth made a choice to declassify this information before sending it to the Signal group chat. Now, that’s important because we know that the information itself was from a document that was marked classified at the time. And the Inspector General was looking at, among other things, whether or not Hegseth did appropriately declassify it before disseminating it.

And one other interesting note, too, Dana, is that Hegseth apparently did not sit for an interview with the Inspector General—resisted doing so—instead providing his responses to their questions in writing.

So this is the most fulsome picture that we’re getting of this report that’s coming from an independent watchdog, one that has been really meticulous in reviewing the facts, acquiring documentation related to Hegseth’s use of Signal, and is now offering its assessment that really aligns with what we’ve been talking about for months now.

“Wow. I mean, this is a big deal. Zach, thank you so much, and to Jake as well for breaking this news. I really appreciate it,” Bash reacted.

Watch the full clip above via CNN.