By Molly Goddard
3:32am PDT, Apr 5, 2025
_
The Pentagon is investigating
Pete Hegseth's text messages.
After the editor of
The Atlantic,
Jeff Goldberg, was mistakenly added to a chain where 18 members of
Donald Trump's administration allegedly discussed sensitive military operations in Yemen, the Defense Secretary's use of the Signal messaging application is now in question.
Join us to read about why Hegseth is currently under the microscope…
MORE:
Follow Wonderwall on MSN for more top news
_
On Thursday, April 3, the Pentagon's acting inspector general
Steven Stebbins confirmed he would be looking into the text messaging breach.
According to the
Associated Press, the platform is unable to safely hold classified material and is not part of the Defense Department's secure communications network.
"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," Stebbins said in a letter to Pete Hegseth.
The message also clarified the investigation "will review compliance with classification and records retention requirements."
_
Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump and others involved in the administration are mandated under the law to archive their official conversations. However, it's unclear if there were ever other records made of the conversation.
The commander-in-chief addressed the
investigation during a meeting with the media: "You're bringing that up again," Trump scolded a journalist, according to the
Associated Press. "Don't bring that up again. Your editors probably — that's such a wasted story."
_
Last month, Pete Hegseth took to X to deny any wrongdoing: "So, let's me get this straight.
The Atlantic released the so-called 'war plans' and those 'plans' include: No names. No targets. No locations. No units. No routes. No sources. No methods. And no classified
information," he wrote.
"Those are some really s***** war plans," the official added before hurling an insult at the reporter. "
This only proves one thing: Jeff Goldberg has never seen a war plan or an 'attack plan' (as he now calls it). Not even close."
_
Donald Trump didn't seem bothered by the scandal. "There was no classified information. There was no problem. And the attack was a tremendous success," he told
Newsmax in March.
National Security Adviser
Mike Waltz took the blame during an interview with Fox News'
Laura Ingraham days later. "Look, I take full responsibility," the former Army Special Forces officer said. "I built the group. My job is to make sure everything's coordinated."
_
Mike Waltz continued to badger
Jeff Goldberg for telling the world about the slip-up in an article.
"I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but of all the people out there, somehow this guy who has lied about the
president, who has lied to Gold Star families, lied to their attorneys and gone to Russia hoax, gone to just all kinds of lengths to lie and smear the president of the United States, and he's the one that somehow gets on somebody's contact and then gets sucked into this group," he said.
