The Department of Defense Office Of Inspector General (OIG) has launched a probe into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of Signal in discussions against Houthi rebels.
“The purpose of this memorandum is to notify you that we are initiating the subject evaluation,” a memo reads. “We are conducting this evaluation in response to a March 26, 2025 letter I received from the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, requesting that I conduct an inquiry into recent public reporting on the Secretary of Defense’s use of an unclassified commercially available messaging application to discuss information pertaining to military actions in Yemen in March 2025.”
“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 a commercial messaging application for official business,” it states. “Additionally, we will review compliance with classification and records retention requirements.”
“We may revise the objective as the evaluation proceeds. We plan to perform this evaluation in accordance with the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency ‘Quality Standards for Inspection and Evaluation,'” the memo notes. “We will perform the evaluation in Washington, D.C. and at the U.S. Central Command Headquarters in Tampa, Florida. We may identify additional locations during the evaluation.”
Following the leaked Signal chat, a lawsuit was filed alleging that the federal government violated the Federal Records Act and the Administrative Procedure Act in its communications on the app Signal.
“Signal is not an authorized system for preserving federal records and does not comply with recordkeeping requirements under the FRA or NARA guidance,” the filing says.
“Upon information and belief, under current State recordkeeping rules and practices, officials do not forward Signal messages, including messages from the Signal chat, to their official email accounts, thereby barring American Oversight and other FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] requesters from obtaining responsive records to which they are otherwise entitled under FOIA, particularly if such Signal messages are set to auto-delete,” the lawsuit adds.
