Pentagon Watchdog is investigating whether employees were asked to remove Hegseeth’s signal messages

By Tara Copp, Associated Press

Washington (AP) – The watchdog of the Pentagon is investigating or one of Defense -Secretary Pete Hegseeth’s AIDES was asked to remove signal messages that may have Shared sensitive military information With a reporter, according to two people who are familiar with the research and documents assessed by the Associated Press.

The Inspector General’s request focuses on how Information about the air strikes of 15 March On Houthi, goals in Yemen were shared on the Messages app.

This is because Hegseeth is planned to testify for the congress for the first time since his confirmation hearing. He is likely to be confronted with questions under Ede, not only about his handling of sensitive information, but also about the broader unrest on the Pentagon -subsequent The departure of various senior assistants And an internal investigation About information.

Hegseeth has already confronted with questions about the installation of An unsecured internet line In his office, the security protocols and revelations of the Pentagon he shared Details about the military strikes in multiple signal chats.

One of the chats included his wife and brother, while the other included the best national security officers by President Donald Trump and unintentionally included the editor -in -chief of the Atlantic Ocean, Jeffrey Goldberg.

Neither the Pentagon nor the office of the Inspector General immediately responded to Friday requests to comment on the investigation.

In addition to discovering whether someone was asked to remove signal messages, the Inspector General also asks some past and current employees who were at Hegseeth on the day of the strikes that the information placed and who had access to his telephone, according to the two people who are familiar with the research and the documents assessed by the AP. The people were not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke about the condition of anonymity.

Democratic legislators and a small number of Republicans have said that the information posted on the signal chats before the military jets had achieved their goals, could have endangered the life of those pilots and that it would have led to their shooting for lower members of the army.

Hegseeth has said that none of the information has been classified. Several current and former military officials have said that there is no way to have been ok to share that specificity, especially before a strike took place, to share on an unsecured device.

“I repeatedly said, nobody texts,” Hegseeth told Fox News Channel in April after the reporting arose about the chat that his family members included. “I look at war plans every day. What was shared about signal then and now, no matter how you characterize it was informal, non -classified coordinations, for media coordinations and other things. That is what I said from the start.”

Trump has made it clear that HegseTh will continue to get his support and says during a speech by Memorial Day on Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia that the Minister of Defense ‘went a lot’ but ‘he is doing really well’.