The Department of Defense‘s Office of the Inspector General announced Thursday that it will investigate Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth‘s use of Signal to discuss possible military operations.

The Signal group chat included several Cabinet members, including Hegseth, as well as Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who was added accidentally and unknowingly. Cabinet members used the unsecured platform to discuss whether to begin a military campaign against the Houthis in Yemen.

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Sens. Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Jack Reed (D-RI), the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, respectively, called on the inspector general to investigate the matter last week.

Steven Stebbins is currently serving as acting DOD inspector general after President Donald Trump fired Robert Storch, former inspector general.

Stebbins notified Hegseth and Deputy Secretary of Defense Stephen Feinberg on Thursday that an investigation was being initiated.

“The purpose of this memorandum is to notify you that we are initiating the subject evaluation,” Stebbins said. “The objective of this evaluation is to determine the extent to which the Secretary of Defense and other DOD personnel complied with DOD policies and procedures for the use of a commercial messaging application for official business.”

Hegseth has maintained he did not share “war plans” in the group chat. However, the Atlantic published the group chat’s contents, which revealed the defense secretary spoke about when the attacks would commence and what U.S. weapons systems would be involved — details that are classified prior to an impending operation.

Trump has stood by his national security adviser, Mike Waltz, who took responsibility for accidentally adding Goldberg to the group chat. However, Waltz also suggested that Goldberg’s phone number was somehow “sucked in” to his phone.

“This case has been closed here at the White House, as far as we are concerned,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters earlier this week.

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Leavitt also said U.S. forces have hit roughly 200 Houthi targets in Yemen since the operation began about three weeks ago.

The Houthis began firing missiles and drones at commercial vessels transiting the waterways off Yemen’s coast in the aftermath of the start of the Israel-Hamas war in late 2023. They have fired at U.S. forces in the region and targeted dozens of ships regardless of affiliation, causing many shipping companies to opt to send their vessels on the longer, more expensive route around the southern tip of Africa instead of cutting through the Red Sea.