Another Republican lawmaker rejected Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s claim of “total exoneration” from a review of the Pentagon’s inspector general regarding the incident known as Signalgate.
“No, that is total baloney,” Don Bacon said in a CNN interview. “I have better words for it, but you can’t say it on TV. I read the report and what I saw what had happened was wrong, but the report makes clear that the secretary put sensitive information that would ordinarily be classified.”
The investigation in question concluded that Hegseth disclosed sensitive operational information about U.S. airstrikes in Yemen using the encrypted messaging app Signal, raising concerns that he may have put American personnel and missions at risk, according to another report.
The inspector general concluded that Hegseth has authority to declassify information but found no documented decision showing he had done so before posting details from a document labeled Secret/NOFORN, meaning it could not be shared with foreign nationals.
The report further states Hegseth should not have used Signal and that senior Defense Department officials require improved training on information-handling protocols, sources said.
Hegseth declined to be interviewed by investigators, instead submitting written responses. He claimed that his classification authority and operational judgment allowed him to share the information, and that his use of Signal did not violate preservation rules under the Federal Records Act, according to a source familiar with his view.
After the report came out, Hegseth replied to a social media post from Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell, who said “This Inspector General review is a TOTAL exoneration of Secretary Hegseth and proves what we knew all along – no classified information was shared.”
In another passage of the interview, Bacon said that if the information he shared on Signal “got to Yemen, it would have compromised the mission, and we could have put our pilots at risk,”
“And so the report was very clear on this, and what troubles me, instead of taking responsibilities, (saying) ‘It was my fault,’ I learned from it,’ they used phrases like, ‘We’re totally exonerated,'” Bacon added.
“A leader stands up, says, ‘I screwed up. I take responsibility. I learned my lesson. I won’t do it again.’ This troubles me more the response and the actual misdeed, because it really undercuts his credibility as a leader,” he concluded.
Bacon is not the only Republican lawmaker who has criticized Hegseth. Sen. Thom Tillis also rejected the claim, saying “at some point, just take the learning experience and move on. No one can rationalize that as an exoneration.”
Originally published on Latin Times
