HEGSETH UNDER FIRE: An unclassified report from the Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General to be released today concluded that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth put U.S. military personnel at risk by sharing sensitive details of their mission against Houthi rebels in Yemen on the unclassified messaging app Signal last March.
“The report reinforced what was already publicly known,” wrote Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) in a post on X, after reading the classified version of the report. “@PeteHegseth used a personal cell phone and an unclassified app to share sensitive operational information, including strike times and specific weapons systems used. That kind of sensitive information, on a hackable personal cell phone and DOD-prohibited app, put the lives of our service members at risk.”
While Signal messages are encrypted during transmission, the app is not authorized for transmitting classified information, which is intended for use only on the Pentagon’s secure system. The DoD IG report noted that Hegseth has the authority to declassify material and that there is no evidence that the sensitive information, which included the exact times that U.S. warplanes would launch and reach their targets, was leaked or otherwise compromised.
“If any uniformed military officer had done the same, he or she would be held accountable,” Slotkin wrote. “Secretary Hegseth should have taken accountability from the start. His failure to take basic accountability 8 months ago has made this a bigger problem, and it is a marked trend in his leadership.”
SIGNALGATE REVIEW SHOWS HEGSETH’S ACTIONS COULD HAVE ENDANGERED SERVICE MEMBERS
HEGSETH: ‘TOTAL EXONERATION’: In response, Hegseth — who refused to sit for an interview with the Inspector General’s office — argued on X that the investigation confirmed he did nothing wrong and was vindicated in his insistence that none of the information he shared in two separate chats was classified.
“No classified information. Total exoneration. Case closed. Houthis bombed into submission. Thank you for your attention to this IG report,” Hegseth posted on his personal X account.
“Good lord. Fake News in overdrive,” Hegseth’s chief spokesman Sean Parnell posted on X, accusing the news media of lying about the report’s conclusions. “This Inspector General review is a TOTAL exoneration of Secretary Hegseth and proves what we knew all along – no classified information was shared,” he posted. “This matter is resolved, and the case is closed.”
Hesgeth did submit written answers to the IG in response to the internal investigation.
DEMOCRATS: ‘HEGSETH SHOULD RESIGN OR BE FIRED’: The report, which also noted that Hegseth has used other Signal chats to conduct official business, prompted a new round of denunciations from Democrats on Capitol Hill and calls for his removal.
“An objective, evidence-based investigation by the Pentagon’s internal watchdog leaves no doubt: Secretary Hegseth endangered the lives of American pilots based aboard the USS Harry S. Truman as they prepared to launch a mission against terrorist targets,” said Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “Pete Hegseth should resign, or the president must remove him at once.”
“This report is a damning review of an incompetent secretary of defense who is profoundly incapable of the job and clearly has no respect for or comprehension of what is required to safeguard our service members,” said Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA). “It confirms staggering violations of policy” and “raises more questions about Hegseth’s decision-making.”
“Chief among them, he had the tools and ability at his fingertips to rapidly communicate this highly sensitive information over established, secure channels. The way he chose to communicate this information put service members at risk,” Smith said. “His poor judgment has been on display throughout this past year.”
“He is unfit to lead our men and women in uniform and should resign immediately. Every day that he remains in this position endangers our troops and our national security,” said Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), a member of the Intelligence Committee. “The Inspector General’s report, following recent reports that Secretary Hegseth may have given orders resulting in unlawful strikes in the Caribbean, only further demonstrates his recklessness and incompetence.”
HOUSE DEMOCRAT TO INTRODUCE ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT AGAINST HEGSETH OVER SECOND STRIKE
Good Thursday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, written and compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre) and edited by Christopher Tremoglie. Email here with tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. Sign up or read current and back issues at DailyonDefense.com. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email and we’ll add you to our list. And be sure to follow me on Threads and/or on X @jamiejmcintyre.
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HAPPENING TODAY: ADMIRAL EXPLAINS ‘DOUBLE-TAP’ STRIKE: Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley, the U.S. special operations commander who ordered the second strike to kill survivors of a Sept. 2 boat strike off the coast of Venezuela, will give a vigorous defense of his decision in a closed-door briefing with members of Congress today, according to multiple media reports.
“According to a source familiar with the incident, the two survivors climbed back onto the boat after the initial strike. They were believed to be potentially in communication with others, and salvaging some of the drugs,” reported ABC’s Martha Raddatz on last night’s World News Tonight. “Because of that, it was determined they were still in the fight and valid targets. A JAG officer was also giving legal advice.” A video clip of Raddatz’s report was reposted on X by Pete Hegseth.
The Wall Street Journal reported similar details, quoting two defense officials as saying “Bradley plans to say he and his legal adviser concluded the two survivors were attempting to continue their drug run, making them and the already-damaged vessel legitimate targets for another attack.”
“Bradley was watching the live feed as the operation unfolded,” the Journal report quoted Pentagon officials as saying, “The first part of the strike set the boat on fire and killed nine people,” the officials said. “It took an hour before the survivors were visible on the live feed.” In making his decision, Bradley “considered that other ‘enemy’ vessels were nearby and that the survivors were believed to be communicating via radio with others in the drug-smuggling network,” according to the report.
Meanwhile, the New York Times reported that before the campaign against suspected drug boats began, Secretary Pete Hegseth approved rules of engagement that took into account what would happen if a strike left survivors.
“The military would attempt to rescue survivors who appeared to be helpless, shipwrecked, and out of what the administration considered a fight. But it would try again to kill them if they took what the United States deemed to be a hostile action, like communicating with suspected cartel members,” multiple U.S. officials told the newspaper.
HUGO GURDON OPINION: FISHY SMELL COMES FROM DEMOCRATS, NOT FROM DRUG BOATS
TRUMP: ‘YOU’RE GOING TO SEE IT VERY SOON ON LAND: President Donald Trump indicated he’s totally on board with the way Hegseth is running the campaign targeting suspected drug runners, insisting that every boat destroyed is saving thousands of American lives.
“I support the decision to knock out the boats and whoever is piloting those boats. Most of them are gone, but whoever are piloting those boats, they’re guilty of trying to kill people in our country,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “I think you’re going to find that there’s a very receptive ear to doing exactly what they’re doing, taking out those boats.”
“Every boat we knock out, we save 25,000 American lives. That’s right,” Trump argued, even though the total number of overdose deaths in the U.S. averages about 70,000 to 80,000 a year. “Actually, if you look over a few years. I think last year, we lost close to 300,000 people were killed. That’s not mentioning all the families.”
And Trump repeated his threat to begin attacks on Venezuelan drug cartels on their home turf. “And very soon, we’re going to start doing it on land, too. Because we know every route, we know every house, we know where they manufacture this crap, we know where they put it all together. And I think you’re going to see it very soon on land.”
TRUMP SAYS HE’D ‘CERTAINLY RELEASE’ VIDEO OF SECOND STRIKE ON SUSPECTED DRUG BOAT SURVIVORS
AFGHANISTAN: The final report of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction — covering 17 years of failed nation-building efforts in Afghanistan has been released, as the office goes out of business.
The report, a forensic audit mandated by Congress, highlights in painful detail staggering amounts of waste, fraud, and abuse, as the U.S. spent $144.7 billion trying to turn Afghanistan into a Western-style democracy. And as the report points out, that’s far more, adjusted for inflation, than the U.S. spent on the post-World War II Marshall Plan.
Between 2002 and 2021, the independent auditors identified between $26 billion and $29.2 billion in wasted or stolen money. “The vast scale of U.S. assistance to Afghanistan created an environment where reconstruction theft was both extensive and varied,” the report said. In one example, the SIGAR investigators noted that in 2013, an investigation of Mahmoud Karzai, President Hamid Karzai’s brother, and First Vice President Fahim Kahn, was dropped at the urging of U.S. Embassy officials. “Both of whom were connected to a nearly $1 billion fraud scheme that resulted in the near-collapse of Afghanistan’s largest bank in 2010.”
The report’s sobering conclusion suggests that corruption was “so deeply entrenched that success was never truly an option.”
“Several former senior U.S. government officials and other participants in, and observers of, the reconstruction effort, told SIGAR that the seeds of failure in Afghanistan had been sown long before the final withdrawal,” the report said. “More critically, many of them concluded that success—when measured against the ambitious goals set by the United States — may never have been achievable, regardless of the strategies adopted or the resources invested.”
THE NEW YORK TIMES SUES: In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington D.C, the New York Times argued that new restrictions on reporters soliciting unapproved information from Pentagon officials are an infringement of the constitutional rights of journalists protected by the First and Fifth Amendments.
“If allowed to stand, that policy will upend the long-standing and ‘healthy adversarial tension between the government, which may seek to keep its secrets’ and ‘the press, which may endeavor to report them … and will deprive the public of vital information about the United States military and its leadership.”
The suit also argued “reporting any information not approved by department officials” could lead to punishment, “regardless of whether such news gathering occurs on or off Pentagon grounds, and regardless of whether the information at issue is classified or unclassified.”
The Pentagon claims the legacy media, who gave up their building access passes over objections to new restrictions, “self-deported,” because they were unwilling to follow “common sense” rules to protect classified and sensitive information.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
THE RUNDOWN:
Washington Examiner: Signalgate review shows Hegseth’s actions could have endangered service members
Washington Examiner: House Democrat to introduce articles of impeachment against Hegseth over second strike
Washington Examiner: Trump says he’d ‘certainly release’ video of second strike on suspected drug boat survivors
Washington Examiner: Hugo Gurdon Opinion: Fishy smell comes from Democrats, not from drug boats
Washington Examiner: Congress to hear plight of thousands of abducted Ukrainian children taken to Russia
Washington Examiner: Lawmakers say repatriation of Ukrainian children taken by Russian forces not up for negotiation
Washington Examiner: US powerless against Putin obstinance as peace deal hopes wane once again
Washington Examiner: US-backed former Afghan government was ‘a white collar criminal enterprise’: Inspector general report
Washington Examiner: I came to America as an interpreter. He came as a trained killer. We got the same resettlement plan
Washington Examiner: US asks Lebanon to return Israeli bomb to prevent capture by Russia or China
Washington Examiner: Trump sanctions Venezuelan model over alleged support for Tren de Aragua
Wall Street Journal: How a Man Convicted of Running a Latin American Narco State Landed a Pardon
AP: Pentagon knew boat attack left survivors but still launched a follow-on strike, AP sources say
New York Times: U.S. Military’s Boat Strikes Planning Takes On New Significance
Wall Street Journal: Hegseth Asked Top Admiral to Resign After Months of Discord
CNN: In 2016 video, Hegseth says US troops ‘won’t follow unlawful orders’ from the president
Washington Post: Republicans begin to tighten the screws on Hegseth’s Pentagon
New York Times: New York Times Sues Pentagon Over First Amendment Rights
AP: Putin calls talks with US on ending the Ukraine war ‘useful’ but also ‘difficult work’
New York Times: His Deadline for a Peace Deal Blown, Trump Faces Choices on Russia-Ukraine Talks
ABC News: After US-Russia Meeting, Ukraine to Begin Regrouping with European and American Allies
Wall Street Journal: Drones Fight Other Drones in the Battle for Ukraine’s Skies
AP: Trump hosting the leaders of Congo and Rwanda to sign key deal for peace in eastern Congo
New York Times: From Welcome to Worry: Afghans in the U.S. Face Uncertainty and Backlash
AP: Trump is fighting the Institute of Peace in court. Now, his name is on the building
Washington Post: Federal judge limits warrantless immigration arrests in D.C.
Air & Space Forces Magazine: MDA Picks Diverse Contractor Pool to Compete for Homeland Defense Projects
DefenseScoop: US Military Stands Up First Kamikaze Drone Squadron Under CENTCOM’s New ‘Scorpion Strike’ Task Force
Breaking Defense: New Offensive Cyber Operations Squad Standing Up for Air Force Reserve
Air & Space Forces Magazine: NRO’s Proliferated Satellite Constellation Outperforming Expectations
SpaceNews: Space Force Top Buyer Says Rapid Commercial Innovation Is Reshaping Military Space Strategy
National Defense Magazine: Air Force Training Has an AI Gap
Air & Space Forces Magazine: 100th KC-46 Joins the Air Force Fleet
Air & Space Forces Magazine: Air Force to Unveil Training, Grooming, and Fitness Changes Next Year
Air Force Times: Air Force Updates Officer Developmental Education Policy
AP: Marine dies in training exercise at Camp Pendleton
Air & Space Forces Magazine: Thunderbird F-16 Crashes in California, Pilot OK
THE CALENDAR:
THURSDAY | DECEMBER 4
8 a.m. 2425 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, Virginia — Association of the U.S. Army event: “The Foundations of Holistic Health and Fitness,” with Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James Mingus; and Lt. Gen. Brian Eifler, deputy chief of staff, G-1 at the Army https://www.ausa.org/events/hot-topic/foundations-of-holistic-health-and-fitness
11 a.m. 214 Massachusetts Ave. NE — Heritage Foundation in-person discussion: “A New American Statecraft for Winning the New Cold War,” with Jeff Smith, director, Heritage Asian Studies Center; and Brent Sadler, senior research fellow, Heritage Center for National Security https://www.heritage.org/china/event/new-american-statecraft
11 a.m. — McCain Institute virtual book discussion: “Autocracy Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World,” with author Anne Applebaum, journalist and historian; and Evelyn Farkas, executive director, McCain Institute https://www.mccaininstitute.org/resources/events/authors-insights
12 p.m. — Henry L. Stimson Center Center in-person and virtual discussion: “Enduring Hostility: A Book Talk on Why the U.S. and Iran Remain Adversaries,” with distinguished fellow Barbara Slavin, author Dalia Dassa Kaye, and veteran diplomat Ryan Crocker https://www.stimson.org/event/enduring-hostility-a-book-talk
2 p.m. 1400 L St. NW — Atlantic Council discussion: “Preparing NATO for the Challenges of Tomorrow,” with Italian Air Force Gen. Aurelio Colagrande, deputy supreme allied commander transformation for NATO; and Michael Andersson, head of strategic partnerships and international affairs at Saab, Inc. and board director at the Atlantic Council https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/event/general-aurelio-colagrande
FRIDAY | DECEMBER 5
10 a.m. — National Institute for Deterrence Studies virtual seminar: “Hollywood vs. Reality: Nuclear Deterrence in the Age of ‘Dynamite’ and ‘Oppenheimer,” with Adam Lowther, NIDS vice president of research; and Peter Huessy, NIDS senior fellow https://thinkdeterrence.com/events/hollywood-vs-reality-nuclear-deterrence
WEDNESDAY | DECEMBER 10
9 a.m. 2300 N St. NW — The Aspen Institute “Aspen Security Forum: D.C. Edition,” with Radmila Shekerinska, deputy NATO secretary-general; Mulambo Haimbe, Zambian foreign affairs minister; Robert Kupiecki, Polish national security adviser; Kersti Kaljulaid, former Estonian president; Olof Skoog, deputy secretary-general for political affairs, European External Action Service; Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA); Stephen Biegun, vice chairman, National Endowment for Democracy; retired Adm. Mike Mullen, former Joint Chiefs Chairman; retired Gen. David Berger, former Marine Corps commandant; Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH); Yehor Cherniev, MP and head of the Ukrainian Delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly; Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO); Rep. John Moolenaar, chairman, House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, ranking member, House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party; Oliver Linz, director policy of planning, German Federal Foreign Office; Anja Manuel, executive director, Aspen Strategy Group and Aspen Security Forum; Michael Pillsbury, senior advisor, Heritage Foundation; Kiron Skinner, School of Public Policy, Pepperdine University, https://www.aspensecurityforum.org/aspen-security-forum/2025-asf-dc/
12:30 p.m. 2401 M St., NW — George Washington University Project for Media and National Security Defense Writers Group lunch and discussion with Benedetta Berti, NATO parliamentary assembly secretary-general RSVP: [email protected].
FRIDAY | DECEMBER 12
10:30 a.m. Doral, Florida — Navy Adm. Alvin Holsey relinquishes his duties as commander of U.S. Southern Command to Air Force Lt. Gen. Evan L. Pettus at the command’s headquarters. Holsey will retire after more than 37 years of service in the U.S. Navy.
