Investigation launched into 'Signalgate' — days after White House announced case closed

The Department of Defense inspector general announced on Thursday afternoon that it will investigate Secretary Pete Hegseth and his involvement in a Signal chat that shared highly sensitive details about a military attack, the inspector general's office announced Thursday.

A bombshell report in The Atlantic last week revealed that defense chief Hegseth shared the plans in the unsecure chat that included a reporter among its membership. It's something that President Donald Trump's director of national intelligence warned was unacceptable just days earlier in an X post.

The story reported that the chat among top officials in President Donald Trump's Cabinet discussed classified military strikes against the Houthis in Yemen.

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"The purpose of this memorandum is to notify you that we are initiating the subject evaluation. 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 inspector general's statement read.

Earlier this week, Trump's spokeswoman announced that the White House considered the Signal case closed.

Upon coming into office, Trump fired 17 inspectors general, including Robert Storch who had served as the Defense Department's previous IG, Stars and Stripes reported in January.