Overview

• Hegseth extensively used the consumer app Signal for day-to-day Pentagon operations, bypassing secure communications systems.
• Sensitive Yemen strike plans were leaked through Signal chats to unauthorized recipients, including a journalist and family members.
• Pentagon aides had to search for cell service within the building to access Hegseth’s messages, disrupting their work.
• Hegseth allowed a top aide to access his personal phone to post messages via his Signal account and instructed aides to use the app for foreign government notifications.
• Investigations by the DoD Inspector General and Congress are expanding, with potential DOJ referrals and scrutiny of alternative platforms like TeleMessage, which is under a hack probe.