Watchdog finds Hegseth violated Pentagon protocol in ‘Signalgate’ affair

Watchdog finds Hegseth violated Pentagon protocol in ‘Signalgate’ affair

Watchdog finds Hegseth violated Pentagon protocol in ‘Signalgate’ affair. The Pentagon’s internal watchdog has determined that Defense Secretary Pat Hegseth compromised sensitive military information

and could have put U.S. service members at risk when he shared details about U.S. military operations in Yemen in a private Signal group chat earlier this year.

That’s according to a U.S. official and a person familiar with the report’s findings. The report found that the defense secretary violated Defense Department policies

When he used his personal device to communicate sensitive U.S. military information for government business to other top Trump officials and the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine.

The person was unknowingly on the thread. The defense secretary was unaware of the information. The sources said the report did not answer questions about whether Hegseth had not disclosed the information before posting it in the Signal group chat.

The report has been received by the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. The current version is classified. A redacted version is expected to be made public as soon as tomorrow.

CBS News Pentagon reporter Eleanor Watson is now on board. So, Eleanor, what more can you tell us about the report you’re referring to?

Yeah, okay, Lindsay, the report says that Hexath potentially jeopardized troops and the mission against the Houthis in Yemen in March

when he shared these sensitive details on Signal. That’s according to a source familiar with the matter and a U.S. official. If you recall, during the March Signal messages,

the campaign against the Houthis in Yemen ended with Operation Rough Rider, a 50-plus-day campaign against the Houthis. In a group chat that unwittingly included Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg,

Hexath shared details about the platforms, the times when these attacks were going to happen, and the IG, according to our sources, found that it could endanger troops

and jeopardize the mission. Now, the classified version was delivered to Congress earlier this week, and the unedited version is expected for public release tomorrow.

The outgoing secretary has said he did not share war plans on Signal. But what this IG found was that..t the details in those messages at least put soldiers at risk.

Okay, I want to get back to Hacketh in a second, but the person who inadvertently included Goldberg in the message was then-National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, right?

He’s an ambassador to the United Nations. Will this report fill that part? As far as we know, the Investigation Scope was about the secretary’s use of commercial apps like Signal.

What we could find yesterday and in the unedited version is more than just the message that was posted by The Atlantic. But what we learned about the messages in March

is that Heggath was the one who shared the sensitive details, even though it was Mike Waltz who inadvertently included them in the messages. Another thing, Lindsay,

I want to note what our sources tell us. The reports say that the details Heggath shared in Signal were shared with him by U.S. Central Command,

which is the combatant commander overseeing these operations against the Houthis. And according to our sources, the report found

that U.S. Central Command did not share these details with any foreign officials before sharing them in the group chat. What do we know about this, and why is that piece of the puzzle important?

Okay, Lindsay, as I said, the commander of Central Command shared those details. Mark's secret, no foreign. So this is classified information that, if it gets out,

could harm the mission and the soldiers at risk. What the IG hasn't concluded, according to our sources, is whether or not

he disclosed those details to the declassification authority before sharing them in the chat. What else have you learned about what you're reporting now?

Well, I think back to March, when it was pretty clear that those messages were declassified. The timing of the platform, these kinds of details aren't shared until after the mission.

So, the fact that they were shared during the mission was surprising at the time. And it's been interesting to see the Pentagon try to dispel the narrative that nobody was planning a war.

What happens next here? Is there an accountability structure here for the Secretary of Defense if the fact that this review finds that you are reporting that Department of Defense rules and regulations were violated?

Well, Lindsay, we'll see you tomorrow when the full report is released to the public on what the IG recommends, but what we know so far, the recommendations are

There is definitely a need for more training. There is already training on what is appropriate to communicate, but when to use commercial apps

and when to use personal phones. As far as Secretary Hegist is concerned, the scrutiny of those oversharers on Signal is unlikely to end

when this report is released tomorrow. I also want to ask you to remind people of the nature of this Signal app before we let you go.

It doesn't have encryption. It doesn't have proper channels. Just remind people why it was such a big deal at the time? The military has a way of getting sensitive information,

a specific network where it wants to deliver classified information, and the information shouldn't be extracted from that signal on your phone. It's a non-personal phone.

And so in this instance, communicating classified information like that over an inappropriate network was the only thing that raised concerns. Have administration officials been targeted by foreign adversaries in the past?

Is it possible for them to intercept messages when they're sent over an app like that? I don't know, Lindsay, of any specific instances where anything has come up

or that it's necessarily easier, but it's certainly easier than the classified network that the Pentagon had to use.

Thank you very much. Just to reiterate to everyone, the Pentagon's internal watchdog determined that Defense Secretary Pat Hegseth's disclosure of details about this U.S. strike in Yemen in his private Signal group chat earlier this year compromised sensitive military information and put U.S. service members at risk.

 It looks like the public is going to get a modified version of their handsets tomorrow, but we'll continue to follow up.