The dismissals & turmoil around the inspector general’s investigation have raised tensions & prompted talk of more resignations, according to current & former #defense officials.

Among those considering leaving are Mr. Kasper, #Hegseth’s chief of staff, who helped lead the leak investigation that resulted in his colleagues’ dismissal but has not been implicated in wrongdoing, according to senior defense officials.

Stebbins started the review in response to a #bipartisan request from Sen Roger Wicker of MS, the #Republican chair of the #ArmedServices Cmte, & the committee’s ranking #Democrat, Sen Jack Reed of RI.

Beyond the controversy of the #Signal chat, #Hegseth’s office has been shaken by the sudden firings of Caldwell, Selnick & Colin Carroll, all top advisers to the #defense secy. They were escorted from the #Pentagon last week after being accused of leaking sensitive info.

“The objective of this evaluation is to determine the extent to which the secretary of #defense & other #DoD personnel complied with DoD policies & procedures for the use of a commercial messaging application for official business,” the acting inspector general, Steven Stebbins, said in a notification letter to #Hegseth.

It’s not clear whether Mr. Stebbins’s review has uncovered the #Signal chat that included Hegseth’s wife & other advisers.

Several of these staff members encouraged #Hegseth to move the work-related matters in the “Defense | Team Huddle” chat to his government phone. But Hegseth never made the transition, acc/to some of the people familiar w/the chat who spoke on condition of anonymity….

The #Pentagon’s acting inspector general announced earlier this month that he would review Hegseth’s Yemen strike disclosures on the #Signal chat that included top #Trump aides.

It was unclear how #Hegseth, a veteran & former Fox New host who before his confirmation in January had never previously served in a high-level government position, responded to those warnings.

Many of those in Hegseth’s inner circle during his first months in the #Pentagon were combat veterans w/deep experience in the #military but little firsthand knowledge of how the government operates at the highest levels.

One person familiar with the chat said #Hegseth’s aides had warned him a day or two before the Yemen strikes not to discuss such sensitive operational details in his Signal group chat, which, while encrypted, is not considered as secure as government channels typically used for discussing highly sensitive war planning and combat operations.

Jennifer Hegseth has drawn attention for the access her husband has given her. #Hegseth brought her into two meetings with foreign #military counterparts in February and early March where sensitive information was discussed, a development first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

#NationalSecurity #Trump #Signal #Signalgate
https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/hegseth-brought-his-wife-to-sensitive-meetings-with-foreign-military-officials-c16db0ea

While the #Signal chat created by Waltz for snr ofcls was criticized for sharing details of a #military op on an encrypted but unclassified app, the participants — other than Goldberg of The Atlantic, who appears to have been added accidentally — were snr govt ofcls w/reason to track the progress of the attack.
But some of the participants in the group chat created by #Hegseth were not ofcls w/any apparent need to be given real-time info on details of the op.
#NationalSecurity #Trump #Signalgate

The chat also included two senior advisers to #Hegseth — Dan Caldwell and= Darin Selnick — who were accused of leaking unauthorized information last week and were fired. Mr. Caldwell and Mr. Selnick were among three former top #Pentagon officials who proclaimed their innocence in a public statement on Saturday in response to the leak inquiry that led to their dismissals.

“The truth is that there is an informal group chat that started before confirmation of his closest advisers,” the official said. “Nothing classified was ever discussed on that chat.”

Sean Parnell, the chief #Pentagon spox, did not respond to requests for comment.

The “Defense/Team Huddle” #Signal chat until recently included about a dozen of #Hegseth’s top aides, including Joe Kasper, Hegseth’s chief of staff, & Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spox.

After The Atlantic disclosed that #Hegseth had used Waltz’s #Signal group to communicate details of the strikes as they were being launched, the #Trump admin said he had not shared “war plans” or any classified info, an assertion that was viewed w/tremendous skepticism by #NationalSecurity experts.

In the case of Hegseth’s Signal group, a US official declined to comment on whether Hegseth shared detailed targeting info but maintained that there was no national security breach.

#Hegseth shared information about the Yemen strikes in the “Defense | Team Huddle” chat at roughly the same time he was putting the same details in the other #Signal chat group that included senior US officials & The Atlantic, the people familiar w/Hegseth’s chat group said.

The Yemen strikes, designed to punish Houthi fighters for attacking international cargo ships passing through the Red Sea, were among the first big military strikes of Hegseth’s tenure.

#Hegseth created the separate #Signal group initially as a forum for discussing routine administrative or scheduling information, two of the people familiar with the chat said. The people said Hegseth typically did not use the chat to discuss sensitive #military operations & said it did not include other cabinet-level officials.