Report: Pete Gets a Pass for Signalgate

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “risked compromising sensitive military information†when he shared information on a Signal group chat in late March, according to sources speaking to CNN, which previews a government watchdog report set to be released on Thursday.

And while that information isn’t at all surprising, given that the group chat inadvertently included a reporter, it will be interesting to see how President Donald Trump responds, considering the constant controversies in which Hegseth seems to find himself embroiled.

A classified version of the report, produced by the Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General, is titled “Evaluation of the Secretary of Defense’s Reported Use of a Commercially Available Messaging Application For Official Business,†according to Bloomberg, and was reportedly shared with members of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday. An unclassified version will be released to the public on Thursday.

Steven A. Stebbins is currently the Acting Inspector General for the Department of Defense and only took that role after President Donald Trump fired 17 inspectors general when he took office back in January. Inspectors general are Senate-confirmed positions and are rarely fired without cause, but Trump quickly worked to purge the government of anyone who wasn’t loyal to his administration.

Sen. Mark Kelly, a Democrat from Arizona, told the Wall Street Journal that the report concludes Hegseth shouldn’t have used Signal for his chat, but that he ultimately has the authority to declassify information. Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Republican from Missouri, told the Journal that the report is a “nothing burger.â€

The trouble all started when Hegseth sent Signal messages to a large Signal group chat during U.S. military strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen. The public only caught wind of the chat because Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of the Atlantic, was invited into the chat by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and was able to see the discussions. Waltz was later pushed out of the NSA position and now serves as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Hegseth was sharing sensitive military plans in the chat, and while Signal is encrypted, it’s not considered a secure place for members of government to share classified information. The resulting scandal was dubbed Signalgate, and Hegseth repeatedly denied that he shared classified information.

CNN’s new report is careful to note that the information was at one point classified, but stated that it “remains unclear†if Hegseth properly declassified the information before sharing it on Signal. The information was so sensitive that it even included the phrase “This is when the first bombs will drop,†according to CNN.

Common sense would indicate that such sensitive information would not have been declassified before Hegseth started sharing it in the Signal chat, but it seems like the report doesn’t rule definitively on that, according to the Wall Street Journal. The report was finished in September but wasn’t delivered to members of Congress until Tuesday because of the government shutdown, according to the Journal.

Part of the reason it may have been difficult for IG investigators to determine if the information was technically classified likely has something to do with Hegseth’s hostility to the investigation. Hegseth reportedly refused to sit down for an interview and only responded in writing, according to CNN. Hegseth gave an incredibly awkward interview to his former employer, Fox News, in April where he insisted that “disgruntled employees†were somehow to blame for the story.

The new IG report states that Hegseth “should not have used Signal and that senior Defense Department officials need better training on protocols,†according to CNN, which cites officials who have read the report.

Hegseth has more recently been in hot water over the killing of at least 80 people in 21 strikes on boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean. The Trump regime claims that the people are drug traffickers and insists the U.S. is in a state of war against people bringing drugs into the country. But Trump hasn’t produced evidence that these are actually drug runners, and even if they are, dealing drugs isn’t a capital crime.

The controversy over the strikes got even more heated when the Washington Post reported on Nov. 28 that Hegseth had given orders before the first strike on Sept. 2 to kill everybody. The Post reports that a first strike on that boat killed nine people, but that two survivors were seen clinging to the boat. A second strike was ordered, though Hegseth tried to distance himself from that decision on Tuesday. Hegseth, while sitting next to Trump during a so-called cabinet meeting, claimed that he watched the first strike live, but wasn’t the one who decided to launch a second strike killing the survivors.

Hegseth pinned the second strike on Admiral Mitch Bradley in a tweet on Tuesday in what was clearly an effort to deflect blame for potential war crimes.

Let’s make one thing crystal clear:

Admiral Mitch Bradley is an American hero, a true professional, and has my 100% support. I stand by him and the combat decisions he has made — on the September 2 mission and all others since.

America is fortunate to have such men protecting…

— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) December 1, 2025

Hegseth had previously been flippant about the strikes, even tweeting out an AI-generated image of Franklin the turtle killing people from a helicopter. But the tone shifted considerably on Tuesday, as Hegseth and Trump both seem to implicitly understand you can’t just go around murdering injured people. Or at least they understand that there can be consequences for people who commit war crimes so brazenly.

Sen. Smith seems to think Hegseth’s job is safe, judging by what he told the Wall Street Journal about the new IG report.

“The arc of the story is that it’s just a never-ending stream of efforts to undermine Pete Hegseth, right? The whole controversy,†Schmitt reportedly said. “So they didn’t get him in the confirmation process? Make a big deal out of this… So it’s just an ongoing effort. I wouldn’t expect it to end with this, but I think again, the President has faith in Secretary Hegseth. I think he’s doing a great job, and it is what it is.â€