A damning Pentagon investigation has revealed that Vice President J.D. Vance returned to the compromised Signal group chat at the heart of the 'Signalgate' scandal, sending a message in the early hours after the security breach became public knowledge.
The Late-Night Message in a Compromised Chat
According to the Department of Defense's 84-page dossier, Vance accessed the 'Houthi PC Small Group' Signal chat on 25 March at 2:30 am. This was a full day after news broke that Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, had been added to the text chain, compromising its security.
Despite the known breach, Vance wrote: "This chat’s kind of dead. Anything going on?" The report states he received no reply from other members. Following his message, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent activated a setting to auto-erase messages eight hours after sending. Other users, including CIA Director John Ratcliffe, altered their profile names.
Hegseth's 'Reckless' Breach of Protocol
The core finding of the probe centres on Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth. The report concludes he violated departmental policies and endangered the lives of U.S. troops by using the personal messaging app for official business.
"Using a personal cell phone to conduct official business and send nonpublic DoD information through Signal risks potential compromise of sensitive DoD information, which could cause harm to DoD personnel and mission objectives," the document states.
It details that Hegseth shared information about impending strikes on Yemen in the chat at 11:44 pm on 15 March, shortly before the operations. This information originated from a 'SECRET
