Greg Myrie

Greg Myrie, NPR News, Washington.

He was in contact with essentially all top national security officials, the CIA director, director of national intelligence, the national security advisor, the secretary of state.

And as we noted, what none of them knew was that Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic, was inadvertently included and was reading the messages as well.

Hi, Michelle.

Yeah, this report comes from the Pentagon's inspector general who says Hegseth risked endangering U.S.

troops by using the Signal messaging app to share military plans before the first attack in Yemen.

Now, NPR has not seen the report, but we've been in touch with people who have, and they've described it on condition of anonymity.

The report says Hegseth shared information labeled secret as he described details of the U.S.

bombing campaign that was just about to begin against the Houthis in Yemen.

This report, which is expected to be released publicly today, says Hegseth violated Pentagon rules by using a personal phone for official business.

Yeah, he was in contact with essentially all top national security officials, the CIA director, director of national intelligence, the national security advisor, the secretary of state.

And as we noted, what none of them knew was that Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic, was inadvertently included and was reading the messages as well.

Now, he didn't report the contents in real time, but did so days later when that U.S.

bombing campaign was well underway in Yemen.

All of these senior government officials at work and at home have rooms where they can communicate securely on government systems known as SCIFs, a sensitive compartmented information facility.

And this is what all of them should have been using.

Instead, they were on Signal, a publicly available app anyone can download.

It encrypts messages and is considered quite good, but it can be hacked.

And would you remind us of what Hegseth said in these messages?

Yeah, Hegseth gave the exact times the U.S.