Mark Greenblatt was one of the government’s inspector generals—the watchdogs who combat waste, fraud, and abuse. He was made IG of the Interior Department in January 2019 by Donald Trump, then fired by the same man in January 2025. Here he explains what is in the Pete Hegseth report, why Hegseth’s version sounds shifty, and why it took raw guts by Pentagon IG Steven Stebbins to tell the truth about the secretary of defense.
The Defense Department Office of Inspector General is expected to issue its report Thursday on the so-called Signalgate incident in which Secretary Pete Hegseth shared highly sensitive attack plans on the texting app Signal.
The DOD OIG will find that Hegseth should not have used Signal, that he “risked compromising sensitive military information, which could have endangered American troops and mission objectives,” and that he shared highly sensitive information with unauthorized individuals and failed to preserve those communications, as required, according to CNN. The DOD OIG report also finds that Hegseth violated Defense Department policies by using his personal device, The Washington Post reports.
However, Hegseth has claimed it as a win. “No classified information. Total exoneration. Case closed. Houthis bombed into submission. Thank you for your attention to this IG report,” he wrote on X on Wednesday.
Here are some key takeaways that Americans should know at this point.
First of all, it takes guts for the DOD OIG to issue such a report now. Over the past year, the administration has eviscerated the Inspector General community, firing more than 20 IGs and acting IGs, making deep budget cuts in the IG offices, and suddenly shuttering the IG Council (albeit temporarily).
IGs have been removed for doing their jobs (e.g. the removal of the acting IG of the Federal Housing Finance Agency for fulfilling his constitutional obligations and the acting IG at the Education Department for conducting standard oversight), so the DOD OIG and its acting IG could be going headfirst into the proverbial line of fire. That is what the IG community is all about—conducting fair, objective, and independent oversight without fear or favor—and they deserve credit for their selfless service.
Second, this was a fast review. Recall that the messages at issue were sent just nine months ago, and the first reporting on the scandal came out in The Atlantic on March 24. DOD IG announced its evaluation in April. Considering the nature of this evaluation, with its highly sensitive subject matter and senior officials as witnesses, turning it around in less than nine months is impressive and a credit to the IG community. The DOD OIG should be commended for turning it around so fast. This reflects how the IG community can add real value for the American people on complex and important issues quickly.
Turning to the merits of the report, the IG reportedly concluded that the defense secretary has the authority to declassify information. It adds that Hegseth asserted that he made an operational decision in the moment to share that information. This seems like a stretch. What caused him to make the “operational decision” to text over an app–rather than using appropriate classified channels–about detailed military operations? The OIG report will reportedly find that there was no documentation of Hegseth’s operational decision, and it is not clear whether the declassification was executed properly. So, this “operational decision in the moment” smacks of post-hoc rationalization. It will be up to Congress to press this issue if they see fit.
Here’s another aspect of this review that caught my eye: Hegseth apparently refused to sit for an interview with the OIG and “submitted his version of events in writing.” In my experience leading OIG investigations into misconduct by senior officials and serving as the Inspector General of the U.S. Interior Department, this is highly unusual and very problematic.
Conducting a witness interview is crucial to obtaining credible evidence. Without an interview, the OIG evaluators do not have a chance to assess the witness’s credibility, ask follow-up questions, or probe the witness’s memory beyond their written statement.
Accepting a written statement has other drawbacks. For instance, it is not clear who wrote Hegseth’s statement. For someone as senior as the secretary of defense, Trump administration lawyers undoubtedly reviewed and edited his statement, if not outright drafted it in the first place. Any time there are other cooks in the kitchen, there is a risk that the words and recollections stray from the witness’s actual memory.
Another concern is scope: did Hegseth’s statement cover all of the OIG’s relevant issues? Were IG evaluators permitted to ask the questions they wanted answered, or was Hegseth free to ignore issues at his discretion? Finally, unlike an interview, a written statement also allows for close coordination with other witnesses to ensure consistency of their stories.
My concern about accepting a witness’ written statement in lieu of an interview is not speculative. When I served as Inspector General at the Interior Department, I faced a virtually analogous situation in which a senior official declined to be interviewed and submitted a written statement instead. I refused to entertain that possibility for the reasons I mentioned above. I determined that a witness cannot have their cake and eat it too, so my office did not treat the statement as credible evidence.
Hegseth appears to have the president’s support at this point. If the reporting is accurate, it dings Hegseth in a few ways. Even though the Pentagon spokesman claimed the report was a “TOTAL exoneration,” it apparently faults several of Hegseth’s actions. The timing of these findings is significant, as Hegseth is also under fire for his role in military attacks against drug smugglers in the Caribbean. Nevertheless, the president seems to be sticking by his secretary of defense at this point.
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