By Nancy A. Youssef and Lindsay Wise
The Pentagon inspector general has expanded an investigation into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s sharing of military plans to a second Signal chat that included his wife and brother, according to a congressional aide and another person familiar with the inquiry.
Acting Inspector General Stephen Stebbins announced last month that he was investigating Hegseth’s use of “an unclassified commercially available messaging application” to discuss U.S. airstrikes in Yemen. The move pertained to a Signal chat involving Hegseth and other senior administration officials disclosed by the Atlantic magazine in March.
It hasn’t been clear before that the probe also is examining another Hegseth chat, which was disclosed by the New York Times after Stebbins’s announcement. The expanded investigation increases the risks for Hegseth, who has denied posting classified information and said the controversy over his use of Signal has been fueled by leaks from opponents.
President Trump said Thursday he planned to shift national security adviser Mike Waltz—who lost favor within the White House in part because of his role in the Signal controversy—out of his post. Waltz will be nominated to be ambassador to the United Nations, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio will take over as national security adviser on an interim basis, Trump said.
The Pentagon inspector general is focused, in part, on who took information from a government system for highly-classified information and put it into Hegseth’s commercial Signal app, the person familiar with the inquiry said.
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