The investigation into suspicious Signal chats involving US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is gaining momentum, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The Pentagon's inspector general is now investigating not just one, but two chat rooms, and is also trying to figure out how classified data could have gotten from a government-protected computer to Hegset's personal devices.
Initially, attention focused on a chat room where the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic was accidentally added while discussing the strike on Yemen. But it turned out that there was another group where Hegset shared the same information with his wife, brother, lawyer, and friends.
The investigation is also checking who exactly and how quickly was able to transfer classified information from a protected system, as this is usually technically difficult.
Hegseth himself has repeatedly downplayed the significance of the first chat, but has remained relatively silent about the second. President Donald Trump has publicly supported Hegseth, but on Thursday, May 1, Michael Waltz, the national security adviser who mistakenly added the editor to the chat, was “fired” from the White House and transferred to the post of US ambassador to the United Nations.