Pentagon Will Review Pete Hegseths Signal Use

The Pentagon’s acting inspector general will review Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s disclosure on the Signal messaging app of the timing U.S.fighter jets’ airstrikes against Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, the Defense Department’s watchdog agency announced Thursday.“The objective of this evaluation is to determine the extent to which the secretary of defense and other DoD personnel complied with DoD policies and procedures for the use of commercial messaging application for official business,” the acting inspector general, Steven Stebbins, said in a notification letter to Mr.

Hegseth.Mr.Stebbins started the review in response to a joint bipartisan request last week from Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and the committee’s ranking Democrat, Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island.The statement from Mr.

Stebbins, who took over as acting inspector general after Mr.Trump’s firing of Robert Storch, notably called the review an evaluation and not an investigation.“Our evaluation will be objective, independent and thorough, and we will release the unclassified portions of our evaluation when it is complete,” said Mollie Halpern, a spokeswoman for the inspector general’s office.The difference, Ms.

Halpern said, is that investigations may involve allegations of civil or criminal wrongdoing, while “evaluations” are focused more on operations, policies and programs.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe....