{"id":10776,"date":"2025-06-07T15:15:20","date_gmt":"2025-06-07T15:15:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/?p=10776"},"modified":"2025-06-07T15:15:22","modified_gmt":"2025-06-07T15:15:22","slug":"investigators-looking-at-who-sent-hegseths-signal-texts-whether-they-were-told-to-delete-them-sources-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/?p=10776","title":{"rendered":"Investigators looking at who sent Hegseth&#8217;s Signal texts, whether they were told to delete them, sources say"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-testid=\"prism-article-body\">\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">Pentagon investigators are looking into whether Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth personally wrote the text messages detailing the military\u2019s plans to strike Houthi targets in Yemen or whether other staffers typed out those details, according to two people familiar with the ongoing probe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The Defense Department\u2019s Office of Inspector General has spent several weeks interviewing Hegseth\u2019s current and former staff members to figure out how United States strike details taken from a classified system wound up in a commercial messaging app known as Signal.<\/p>\n<div class=\"oLzSq QrHMO fnRUo pvsTF EhJPu vPlOC zNYgW OsTsW RMeqy daRVX ISNQ sKyCY eRftA acPPc MENS nFwaT MCnQE mEeeY SmBjI xegrY rPLsU iulOd NIuqO zzscu lzDCc aHUBM IEgzD OjMNy eQqcx SVqKB GQmdz jaoD VWDdR ONJdw vrZxD OnRTz gbbfF roDbV GPGwb oMlSS gfNzt oJhud eXZcf zhVlX \">\n<div>\n<div class=\"InlineImage GpQCA lZur asrEW \" data-testid=\"prism-inline-image\">\n<figure class=\"kzIjN GNmeK pYrtp dSqFO \" data-testid=\"prism-figure\">\n<div class=\"GpQCA lZur \" style=\"padding-bottom:69.1743827160494%\" data-testid=\"prism-ratio-frame\">\n<div class=\"FvQLF iLTd NqeUA UzzHi iWsMV \"><picture data-testid=\"prism-picture\"><source media=\"(max-width: 414px)\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i.abcnewsfe.com\/a\/87292074-be6e-46dd-985c-3f46c2b0c9b4\/pete-hegseth-5-ap-gmh-250606_1749228481398_hpMain.jpg?w=375, https:\/\/i.abcnewsfe.com\/a\/87292074-be6e-46dd-985c-3f46c2b0c9b4\/pete-hegseth-5-ap-gmh-250606_1749228481398_hpMain.jpg?w=750 2x\"\/><source media=\"(min-width: 415px)\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i.abcnewsfe.com\/a\/87292074-be6e-46dd-985c-3f46c2b0c9b4\/pete-hegseth-5-ap-gmh-250606_1749228481398_hpMain.jpg?w=750, https:\/\/i.abcnewsfe.com\/a\/87292074-be6e-46dd-985c-3f46c2b0c9b4\/pete-hegseth-5-ap-gmh-250606_1749228481398_hpMain.jpg?w=1500 2x\"\/><\/picture><\/div>\n<\/div><figcaption>\n<div class=\"nMMea bNYiy Mjgpa dGwha DDmxa jgKNG RGHCC aBIU PriDW lZur \" data-testid=\"prism-caption\">\n<p><span class=\"hsDdd OOSI GpQCA lZur VlFaz \" data-testid=\"prism-truncate\"><span><span class=\"gtOSm FbbUW tUtYa vOCwz EQwFq yCufu eEak Qmvg nyTIa SRXVc vzLa jgBfc WXDas CiUCW kqbG zrdEG txGfn ygKVe BbezD UOtxr CVfpq xijV soGRS XgdC sEIlf daWqJ \">Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth delivers a speech at the US cemetery to commemorate the 81st anniversary of the D-Day landings, June 6, 2025 in Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"gtOSm FbbUW tUtYa vOCwz EQwFq yCufu eEak Qmvg nyTIa SRXVc vzLa jgBfc WXDas CiUCW kqbG zrdEG txGfn ygKVe BbezD UOtxr CVfpq xijV soGRS XgdC sEIlf daWqJ YNujN JGtjI aZFDu rkKLh \">Thomas Padilla\/AP<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;Because this is one of the DOD IG\u2019s ongoing projects, in accordance with our policy we do not provide the scope or details to protect the integrity of the process and avoid compromising the evaluation,&#8221; DOD IG spokesperson Mollie Halperin told ABC News.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The details were relayed in <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/2nd-signal-chat-reveals-hegseth-messaging-yemen-strikes\/story?id=120997685\">two chat groups<\/a> that included Hegseth &#8211; one with Vice President JD Vance and other high-ranking officials, and a second one that included Hegseth&#8217;s wife, who is not employed by the government.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">It remains unclear how soon the findings will be released. Hegseth is scheduled to testify for the first time as defense secretary on Tuesday, where Democratic lawmakers are expected to question his handling of classified and sensitive information.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The sharing of the details reportedly occurred around the same time in mid-March when key members of President Donald Trump&#8217;s National Security Council, including Hegseth, inadvertently shared details about the March 15 missile strike in Yemen with the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Much of the same content was shared in the second encrypted chat with family members and others &#8212; a chat group that Hegseth had created on his personal phone during his confirmation process that included his wife, Jennifer Hegseth, the two officials told ABC News.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">In addition to looking at whether the information was classified and who wrote it, investigators are also asking whether any staff members were asked by Hegseth or others to delete messages, according to one person familiar with the IG probe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">The government is required under law to retain federal communications as official records.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pentagon investigators are looking into whether Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth personally wrote the text messages detailing the military\u2019s plans to strike Houthi targets in Yemen or whether other staffers typed out those details, according to two people familiar with the ongoing probe. The Defense Department\u2019s Office of Inspector General has spent several weeks [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10776"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10778,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10776\/revisions\/10778"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}