Pentagon researchers are investigating whether the secretary of the Department of Defense, Pete Hegesh, personally wrote the text messages detailing the plans of the military to attack Huti objectives in Yemen or if other employees wrote those details, according to two people familiar with the ongoing research.
The Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Defense has spent several weeks interviewing the current and previous staff members of Hegseth to discover how the US strike details taken from a classified system end in a commercial messaging application known as a signal.
The Secretary of Defense, Pete Heghseth, pronounces a speech in the United States cemetery to commemorate the 81th anniversary of the landings of day D, on June 6, 2025 in Colleville-Sur-Mer, Normandy.
Thomas Padilla/AP
“Because this is one of the ongoing projects of the DOD IG, according to our policy, we do not provide the scope or details to protect the integrity of the process and avoid compromising the evaluation,” Dod Ig spokesman, Mollie Halperin, told ABC News.
The details were transmitted in two chat groups that included Hegseth, one with vice president JD Vance and other high -ranking officials, and a second that included Hegseth’s wife, who is not used by the government.
It is not clear how soon the findings will be launched. It is expected that Hegseth will testify for the first time as Secretary of Defense on Tuesday, where Democratic legislators are expected to question their classified and confidential information management.
According to the reports, the exchange of details occurred at the same time in mid -March when the key members of the National Security Council of President Donald Trump, including Hegseth, inadvertently shared details about the missile strike of March 15 in Yemen with the editor in chief of the Atlantic.
Much of the same content was shared in the second chat encrypted with family members and others, a chat group that Hegesh had created on his personal phone during his confirmation process that included his wife, Jennifer Hegseth, the two officials said to ABC News.
In addition to analyzing whether the information was classified and who wrote it, the researchers also ask whether Hegseth or others asked a personnel member to eliminate the messages, according to a person familiar with the IG investigation.
The government is required to retain federal communications as official records.
