The United States Department of Defense Office of Inspector General announced on Thursday it is launching an evaluation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's reported use of a "commercially available messaging application for official business."
The watchdog noted that the investigation will seek to determine to which extent Hegseth and other Pentagon staff complied with the Department of Defense's policies and procedures regarding the use of such apps for official business and their "compliance with classification and records retention requirements."
The move comes after journalist Jeffrey Goldberg from The Atlantic leaked messages between US government officials, including Hegseth, about Washington's plans for a military operation against Yemen's Houthis that were sent in a Signal group chat to which he was added by mistake by US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz.
