Pentagon watchdog launches probe of Hegseth Signal messages

[applegrove]

Pentagon watchdog launches probe of Hegseth Signal messages

By Natasha Bertrand, CNN
2 minute read
Published 2:44 PM EDT, Thu April 3, 2025

CNN

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/03/politics/hegseth-pentagon-watchdog-signal-probe/index.html

"SNIP.........

The acting Inspector General of the Defense Department will review Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s use of Signal in a group chat with other key national security officials to discuss military strikes against the Houthis in Yemen last month, the IG’s office announced on Thursday.

In a letter to Hegseth, Acting Inspector General Steven Stebbins wrote that the objective of the IG’s “evaluation” is to determine whether Hegseth and other Pentagon personnel “complied with DoD policies and procedures for the use of a commercial messaging application for official business.”

The probe will also examine whether Hegseth complied with classification and records retention requirements, the letter says. The review will take place both in Washington, DC and at US Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida, it adds.

The chairman and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee requested that Stebbins conduct a review after The Atlantic magazine reported last month that Hegseth and other senior national security officials used the messaging app Signal to discuss military strikes against the Houthis in Yemen.

.........SNIP"

[Frasier Balzov]

1. No, they'll fire the horse catcher.

[applegrove]

2. I don't get your analogy. What is a horse catcher?

[Frasier Balzov]

3. It's a laugh line from a John Mulaney standup routine.

In which he compares the Trump presidency to a horse loose in a hospital.

People wanting an end to the crisis begin to hope that the horse catcher will catch the horse.

But then the horse announces that he has fired the horse catcher.

It's funny because of how Trump-like the horse is in his determination not to have the chaos he is causing ended.

And how bizarrely empowered he views himself to be to avoid capture.

[applegrove]

4. That sounds familiar. Did he do it on SNL? That's the only place I've

seen John Mulaney.

[Frasier Balzov]

5. His Netflix special at Radio City Music Hall.

(CONTAINS PROFANITY.)

[Buns_of_Fire]

6. (Soon to be EX-Acting Inspector General...) nt