


DOD IG: ‘SECRET/NOFORN’ INFO IN SIGNAL CHAT: Citing “people familiar with the matter,” the Washington Post is reporting that the Pentagon’s acting inspector general found that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s description of planned airstrikes on Yemen in March — shared on an unsecure group chat on Signal — included details derived from a classified email sent by top commander for the operation Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla.
The classified email was labeled “SECRET/NOFORN,” according to the report. “The ‘SECRET’ classification of Kurilla’s email, which has not previously been reported, denoted that the information was classified at a level at which unauthorized disclosure could be expected to cause serious damage to national security. The ‘NOFORN’ label means it also was not meant for anyone who is a foreign national, including senior officials of close allies of the United States,” the newspaper said.
Recommended Stories
- Ahead of peace talks, Russia continues relentless drone assaults on Ukrainian cities
- More nuanced assessment suggests US and Israeli strikes on Iran significantly set back the regime’s nuclear program
- Putin seen as ignoring Trump’s ultimatum, fighting on in pursuit of total victory
Kurilla reportedly sent his classified email over the Pentagon’s secure system known as SIPRNet, short for Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, and the information included a rundown of when and where U.S. planes and missile systems would strike, which was revealed after the fact by Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic journalist inadvertently added to the chat.
PARNELL: OUR OPERATIONAL SECURITY AND DISCIPLINE ARE TOP NOTCH’: The latest leak was denounced by Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell, who issued an angry denial in a statement and on Steve Bannon’s podcast show.
“The Department stands behind its previous statements: no classified information was shared via Signal,” Parnell said in a statement emailed to the Washington Post. “As we’ve said repeatedly, nobody was texting war plans, and the success of the Department’s recent operations — from Operation Rough Rider to Operation Midnight Hammer — are proof that our operational security and discipline are top-notch.”
The leak of the acting IG’s preliminary finding came from four different people who were “speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid reprisal by the Trump administration.” It also came on the day the Daily Mail reported that drafts of a letter have been circulating inside the Pentagon that is purportedly written by three Pentagon officials, two military and one civilian, who say Hegseth is unfit for office, citing “politicized decision-making to department-wide dysfunction, low morale, and a climate of paranoia driven by what they describe as Hegseth’s obsession with rooting out dissent.”
“This guy has no clue what he’s doing,” one of them told the British newspaper.
“We are not going to let a bunch of anonymous deep state hacks detract us from implementing the president’s agenda and the secretary’s agenda,” Parnell said on Bannon’s show. “If there was any dissension among the political appointees and the leadership here at the Pentagon, we would not have been able to conduct and execute Operation Midnight Hammer, which was the most complicated military operation, certainly that I’ve ever been exposed to,” Parnell said.
“I was in the NMCC, the National Military Command Center, throughout Operation Midnight Hammer, and the way that that operation functioned from the NMCC to the situation room to the secretary of defense to the president was absolutely seamless. It was perfect, and that’s a testament to the secretary’s leadership here in this building,” he added.
PENTAGON DISMISSES REPORT OF ANONYMOUS LETTER CRITICIZING PETE HEGSETH
SMITH: IT’S NOT EVEN DEBATABLE THAT THIS WAS OKAY: At a House Armed Services Committee hearing last week, Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the committee’s ranking Democrat, lamented a lack of accountability and Hegseth’s failure to admit his mistake and move on.
“What we need is we need the secretary of defense himself to say something about this, to issue some policy as to how he’s going to make sure that it doesn’t happen again,” Smith said. “The basic details of this are so unimaginable that if you took out the partisanship and simply put it in front of any member of this committee, there would be outrage that this information was shared in the manner that it was shared. It’s not even debatable that this was okay, even though Secretary Hegseth continues to say that it was perfectly okay.”
“We are left with the impression that this is standard operating procedure. And if it is standard operating procedure, it places the lives of servicemembers at risk, which we should not as a committee be willing to simply accept because of partisan reasons,” Smith continued. “This shouldn’t be happening at the Department of Defense. And we should all say, even if you don’t want to ask for him to resign, if you want to say, ‘hey, mistakes happen, whatever, fix it.’ And let us know how you fixed it so that we can be confident that it’s not going to happen again.”
A proposed amendment to the House NDAA that would have cut Hegseth’s office budget until he conducted a review and issued new guidance on using Signal and other nonsecure platforms failed on a 26-31 vote in committee.
PENTAGON DISMISSES REPORT HEGSETH’S SIGNAL MESSAGES CAME FROM CLASSIFIED DOCUMENT
Good Thursday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, written and compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre) and edited by Christopher Tremoglie. Email here with tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. Sign up or read current and back issues at DailyonDefense.com. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email and we’ll add you to our list. And be sure to follow me on Threads and/or on X @jamiejmcintyre.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP OR READ BACK ISSUES OF DAILY ON DEFENSE
HAPPENING TODAY: Senate Armed Services Committee meets at 9:15 a.m. to consider the nomination of Adm. Daryl Caudle to be chief of naval operations. If confirmed, Caudle will fill the slot left empty after Hegseth unceremoniously fired Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti without explanation.
Franchetti was the first female CNO and the first woman to serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
ALSO TODAY: The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is scheduled to vote on advancing the nomination of former national security adviser Mike Waltz as U.S. representative to the United Nations. His nomination is expected to be approved on a mostly partisan vote.
ZELENSKY: PEACE TALKS BRING WOUNDED HOME: Last night, delegations from Russia and Ukraine met in Istanbul for a third round of talks, which, as was the case with the previous two meetings, produced little more than another prisoner exchange.
But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that alone made the meeting worthwhile. “Seriously ill and severely wounded defenders are returning home,” Zelensky said in a post on X, which included pictures of the newly freed Ukrainian soldiers. “The warriors returning today defended Ukraine in various frontline directions. Many of them had been in captivity for over three years. Each will receive the necessary support and medical assistance.”
“We have managed to bring back more than 1,000 of our people. For a thousand families, this means the joy of embracing their loved ones again. I am grateful to everyone who contributed to this effort.”
As for the peace talks, “The proposal for an immediate and full ceasefire was reiterated to the Russian side,” Zelensky said. “In response, Russian drones struck residential buildings and the Pryvoz market in Odesa, apartment blocks in Cherkasy, energy infrastructure in the Kharkiv region, a university gym in Zaporizhzhia. Donetsk, Sumy, and Mykolaiv regions were all under strikes as well.”
“In total, there were 103 attack drones, mostly ‘Shaheds,’ and four missiles,” Zelensky said. “Russia continues its terror and obstructs diplomacy, which is why it deserves full-scale sanctions responses, as well as our strikes on their logistics, their military bases, and their military production facilities.”
STATE DEPARTMENT APPROVES $322 MILLION IN PROPOSED WEAPONS SALES TO UKRAINE
ZELENSKY FACES BACKLASH OVER CORRUPTION ‘REFORMS’: There were more anti-government demonstrations in Kyiv yesterday in protest of a new law that activists say weakens Ukraine’s anti-corruption watchdogs. The legislation — passed by the Ukrainian parliament and signed by Zelensky — tightens government oversight of two key anti-corruption agencies.
Critics, including European Union officials, argue the law could weaken the independence of those agencies and have a chilling effect on investigations that could point to officials in Zelensky’s government.
In response, Zelensky convened the heads of Ukraine’s key anti-corruption and security agencies and, in his regular nightly video, promised to address the protestors’ concerns. “And very importantly: all the norms for the independence of anti-corruption institutions will be in place.”
“Of course, everyone has heard what people are saying these days – what they are saying on social media, to each other, on the streets. It’s not falling on deaf ears,” Zelensky said. “We’ve analyzed all the concerns, all the aspects of what needs to be changed and what needs to be stepped up. I will propose a bill to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine that will be the response. It will ensure the strength of the rule of law system.”
ZELENSKY FACES GROUND SWELL OF PROTESTS AFTER CUTTING ANTI-CORRUPTION BODY
THE RUNDOWN:
Washington Examiner: Pentagon dismisses report Hegseth’s Signal messages came from classified document
Washington Examiner: Pentagon dismisses report of anonymous letter criticizing Pete Hegseth
Washington Examiner: Zelensky faces ground swell of protests after cutting anti-corruption body
Washington Examiner: Editorial: Zelensky risks US aid over Ukraine corruption law
Washington Examiner: Head of Golden Dome office stresses threats posed by China and Russia
Washington Examiner: Air Force intercepts Russian bombers off the coast of Alaska
Washington Examiner: Syria asks Turkey for help against terrorists
Washington Examiner: Israel’s Gaza aid effort has turned into a deadly scramble for food
Washington Examiner: Florida paying for illegal immigrants to self-deport on commercial flights
Washington Examiner: Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has ‘lawyered up’ amid DOJ scrutiny
Washington Examiner: Opinion: Tulsi Gabbard’s big moment
Washington Examiner: Opinion: Allied attacks on Elbridge Colby miss the mark
Wall Street Journal: ‘Commanders Saw Us as Expendable’: A Russian Soldier’s View of the War
Bloomberg: Next-Gen US Missile Submarine Sees a $1.7 Billion Cost Hike
Defense One: Zapping Drones Swarms into Submission
Air & Space Forces Magazine: Guetlein Talks Golden Dome Priorities, Says Missile Interceptors are Feasible
The War Zone: US Building Container Vaults to Deploy US Nuclear Bombs to Remote Bases
Wall Street Journal: The West’s Insatiable Demand for Missiles Is Boosting U.S. Weapons Makers
Defense One: USAF Won’t Resume Full F-35 Buys Until Lockheed Wrings Problems from Upgrade: Service Chief
Defense News: Turkey, UK Agree on Eurofighter Exports in Step Closer to Deal
Breaking Defense: How the Pentagon Plays into Trump’s Sprawling Artificial Intelligence ‘Action Plan’
Defense Scoop: Future of Advana Data Platform Unclear as Pentagon Halts AI Multiple Award Contract
Air & Space Forces Magazine: NORAD Intercepts Russian Bombers and Fighters near Alaska
AP: Close Call Between B-52 and Passenger Jet Puts Focus on Small Airports
Air & Space Forces Magazine: GE Urges Pentagon to Keep Up with Adaptive Engine Tech
Air & Space Forces Magazine: Space Traffic Management’s Tricky Future: Smaller Satellites, More Threats
Military.com: Study Finds PFAS ‘Forever Chemicals’ Linked to Type 2 Diabetes
THE CALENDAR:
THURSDAY | JULY 24
6:30 a.m. — Association of the U.S. Army Coffee Series discussion: “Army $197.4 billion fiscal year 2026 budget request,” with Maj. Gen. Mark Bennett, director, Army budget https://www.ausa.org/events/coffee-series/mg-bennett
8 a.m. 1100 Pennsylvania Ave. NW — GovForward Seventh annual ATO (Authorization to Operate) and Cloud Security Summit, with Katie Arrington, performing the duties of the Defense CIO; Drew Myklegard, deputy federal CIO at the Office of Management and Budget; and Danny Holtzman, executive director and acting deputy chief digital and AI officer for acquisition and assurance at the Defense Department; https://events.govexec.com/ato-and-cloud-security-summit-2025/
FRIDAY | JULY 25
10 a.m. — National Institute for Deterrence Studies virtual seminar: “Strategic Imperatives: Augmenting Theater Nuclear Forces for 21st Century Deterrence,” with Greg Weaver, principal of Strategy to Plans LLC https://thinkdeterrence.com/events/strategic-imperatives
MONDAY | JULY 28
12 p.m. 1700 H Street N.W. — George Washington University Project for Media and National Security Defense Writers Group lunch discussion: “Artificial Intelligence and Democracy: Global Perceptions, Political Impacts and National Security Implications,” with Dritan Nesho, CEO, HarrisX, a Washington-based public opinion research, analytics, and strategy firm email RSVP: [email protected].