Pentagon report concludes defense secretary endangered troops as some Republican lawmakers scrutinize Caribbean operations – key US politics stories from 3 December 2025
A long-awaited Department of Defense report found that US defense secretary Pete Hegseth violated departmental policies and put troops in danger when he shared secret information in a Signal messaging chat, a source familiar with the report said.
The report centers on Hegseth’s conduct before and during a planned airstrike in Yemen against Houthi fighters back in March. The Signal chat was disclosed after a reporter for the Atlantic was accidentally added as a member. The group also included JD Vance; the CIA director, John Ratcliffe; and the then-national security adviser, Mike Waltz. The report did not examine the conduct of those officials, since they do not work at the department of defense.
The source said Hegseth refused to be interviewed by the inspector general, and instead provided a brief written statement in which he said he only shared information in the chat that would not have risked lives or endangered the mission, that he had the right to declassify material and that he considered the inspector general to be partisan.
