NPR asks Sen. Jack Reed, top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, why he wants an investigation into whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared classified intelligence in a Signal chat.
Sen. Jack Reed, D-Rhode Island, is calling for the Department of Defense to expand its existing evaluation into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of Signal, which he has used to share sensitive military operations.
NPR first reported that the White House is looking for a new secretary of defense, after news surfaced that Hegseth shared sensitive military information in another Signal group chat. Over the weekend, The New York Times reported that the second chat included several people who are not Defense Department employees, including Hegseth’s wife, brother and personal lawyer.
« This is just a complete meltdown of common defense and it endangers our national security », Reed told Morning Edition.
In March, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, reported that he was inadvertently added to a Signal chat with Hegseth and other top U.S. national security officials, who were discussing planned military airstrikes on Yemen.
Hegseth has defended himself saying the information he shared in both group chats was informal.
« What was shared over Signal, then and now, however you characterize it, was informal, unclassified coordination for media coordination and other things », Hegseth told Fox & Friends a day after news of the second Signal chat surfaced.
The Pentagon’s acting Inspector General Steven Stebbins is evaluating Hegseth’s use of Signal to determine whether classified information was shared in the initial group chat.
