Hegseth adviser says 'Signalgate' report debunks allegation War Secretary shared classified intel

A key adviser to War Secretary Pete Hegseth said that the upcoming Pentagon inspector general report on so-called “Signalgate” does not find that Hegseth shared classified information when texting about upcoming strikes against the Houthis — and that the report will reveal improper cell phone practices by former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

Navy Reserve Commander Tim Parlatore, a lawyer and an adviser to Hegseth, told "Just the News, No Noise" on Wednesday that the report by Pentagon inspector general Steven Stebbins — which was delivered to Congress and is now expected to be made public on Thursday — “totally exonerates” the war secretary, and that it reveals details about the extensive use of Signal by Biden national security officials as well.

“You’re going to see that it totally exonerates Pete Hegseth,” Parlatore said. “There is no classified material in those texts. Everything he declassified — that he has within his authority to declassify.”

Parlatore added: “Classified information — did he violate that, did he put out classified information? And the answer is no. Totally exonerated.”

“There is a tiny little section in there that is really untethered from the rest of the report where the investigator states their opinion that having this information out there on an unclassified could have endangered the troops,” Parlatore also said. “But the problem is it is completely untethered from the rest of the report. It doesn’t cite to a single source, not to a single document, not to a single interview, because it is not something that the IG was investigating.”

Trump foe Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, published a story for his outlet in March titled, “The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans.”

The Atlantic story from March said Goldberg had been added to the Signal group chat by a user named “Mike Waltz” — with Waltz serving as national security adviser at the time — and that the chat included users such as Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent, and other national security officials.

The messages from Hegseth, sent shortly ahead of U.S. military action, had included alleged details on upcoming March 15 strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists in Yemen. The strikes were carried out as part of the U.S. military’s Operation Rough Rider campaign, which U.S. Central Command said had hit over 800 targets during the weekslong effort earlier this year.

Multiple outlets citing anonymous sources reported on Wednesday that the Pentagon inspector general report concluded that Hegseth had violated military regulations.

Parlatore said Wednesday that the watchdog report did not find that Hegseth shared classified information, but that the report does contain new details about Austin and the use of Signal during the Biden administration as well.

“That’s actually another big part of this report — is it talks about how the use of Signal, it’s not a Pete Hegseth issue, it’s not a Trump administration issue, it’s a whole-of-government issue,” Parlatore said. “The use of Signal has proliferated ever since 2020.”

Parlatore added: “This report actually notes that the former secretary, Lloyd Austin, actually used to bring his personal cell phone into the office, into the SCIF, in violation of the law. And that was something that was passed down to Secretary Hegseth when he took over, and he said, ‘well, I’m not going to do that,’ and he wanted to do it a different way because he wanted to comply with the law.”

Parlatore said Wednesday that, when Hegseth learned about Austin’s alleged cell phone practices, Hegseth said he did not want to do the same.

“It was one of those things that when Secretary Hegseth took office they told him this, and he said he didn’t want to do it that way, and the report talks about how he [Hegseth] went to the communications team and asked them if they could find a way that is legal and secure that would allow me [Hegseth] to access Signal from within the office without bringing my cell phone in,” Parlatore said. “And they had rigged a device — essentially his phone would be plugged in outside and he’d have a monitor and keyboard inside the office so he could do that, which of course has also been misreported in initial media reports as an ‘unsecured line’ and everything.”

“I don’t want to do what Lloyd Austin did. I don’t want to break the law. Give me something that’s legal and secure,” Parlatore said when characterizing Hegseth’s thinking.

Austin did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent to him through the Clarion Strategies advisory firm.

“You're talking about a deceitful and highly discredited so-called 'journalist' who's made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again,” Hegseth had told the press in March in response to Goldberg’s report, adding that “I would love to comment on the Houthi campaign because of the skill and courage of our troops.”

Hegseth also disputed the “war plans” characterization of the Signal chat by The Atlantic, saying that “I've heard how it was characterized. Nobody was texting war plans.”

The chairman and ranking member of the GOP-led Senate Armed Services Committee — Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I. — sent a letter to the Pentagon inspector general in late March stating that “this chat was alleged to have included classified information pertaining to sensitive military actions in Yemen” and that “if true, this reporting raises questions as to the use of unclassified networks to discuss sensitive and classified information, as well as the sharing of such information with those who do not have proper clearance and need to know.”

The senators asked the Pentagon watchdog to “conduct an inquiry into, and provide us with an assessment of” a number of issues, including “the facts and circumstances surrounding the above referenced Signal chat incident” and “an assessment of DOD classification and declassification policies and processes and whether these policies and processes were adhered to.”

The Pentagon inspector general revealed in early April that it was opening an investigation into the controversy.

The New York Times then reported later in April about an alleged separate Signal chat group, saying that Hegseth “shared detailed information about forthcoming strikes in Yemen on March 15 in a private Signal group chat that included his wife, brother, and personal lawyer.”

Hegseth consistently denied that any classified information had been shared by him in the Signal chat.

“Nobody's texting war plans,” Hegseth told the press earlier this year. "There's no units, no locations, no routes, no flight paths, no sources, no methods, no classified information." 

Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesman, tweeted on Wednesday, “This Inspector General review is a TOTAL exoneration of Secretary Hegseth and proves what we knew all along — no classified information was shared. This matter is resolved and the case is closed.”

Hegseth shared Parnell’s tweet and echoed his sentiments.

“No classified information. Total exoneration. Case closed. Houthis bombed into submission. Thank you for your attention to this IG report,” the war secretary said on X.

Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., told the press on Wednesday that “it's pretty clear he shouldn't have been using his cell phone and an unsecure app, unofficial app with regards to DOD, to be sharing that kind of information."

"It's not too hard to see how our adversaries can get that information and pass it on, to the Houthis in this case, and put those lives at risk," Kelly added. 

NBC News also tweeted on Wednesday that “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared classified information in a leaked Signal chat that could have imperiled troops, a watchdog report finds.”

“This is a lie. The report specifically says NO CLASSIFIED INFORMATION WAS SHARED,” Parnell said on X in response. “Good lord. Fake News in overdrive.”

Parlatore said Wednesday that “the main point is that there was no classified information in that text” as he emphasized that Hegseth has the authority to declassify information related to the U.S. military.

“He is the original classifying authority. He has unfettered discretion to decide what to unclassify, how, and when. It’s just like the president — the president also has unfettered discretion to do that,” Parlatore said. “And so if he decides to take certain portions of this and move it to an unclassified system so he can send it out to other principals — which by the way, the reason he did that, at the time they were talking with partner forces at the time to let them know what was going on, and then about an hour later the other people on that thread went out on TV and gave interviews on what we had just done, and they were being given the details that they were allowed to talk about on TV, unclassified.”

The Pentagon watchdog office under then-inspector general Robert Storch previously released a report in January related to Austin quietly transferring his authority to former Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks when he was hospitalized in December 2023 and in January and February 2024.

The watchdog said that “although we found no adverse consequences to DoD operations arising from how the hospitalizations we reviewed were handled, the risks to our national defense, including the command and control of the DoD’s critical national security operations, were increased unnecessarily.”