Golden calls on House Armed Services Chairman Rogers to bring Defense Secretary Hegseth before committee for questioning

WASHINGTON — Congressman Jared Golden (ME-02), member of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC), today called on HASC Chairman Mike Rogers (AL-03) to bring Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth before the committee to answer questions about the leak of detailed military strike plans via group chat on a nonsecure commercial messaging app.

“We believe there is a pronounced urgency to the situation given the gravity of the questions raised by the reported events,” wrote Golden in a letter to Rogers signed by every Democrat on the committee. “Therefore, we ask that you schedule this hearing as soon as possible during the upcoming three-week congressional work period.”

Hegseth discussed pending plans for military strikes against Iran-backed militants in Yemen over the messaging app Signal. The group chat was first reported by The Atlantic, whose editor-in-chief was added to the group, which also included the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the CIA Director, the Director of National Intelligence and a member of the National Security Council, among others.

“Discussing such sensitive, and potentially classified, information on a messaging application that is not approved for the transmission of classified information could have jeopardized the safety of servicemembers and compromised the military operation,” the members wrote. “Furthermore, the use of this messaging application may have violated federal laws regarding the proper handling of classified information and federal record keeping laws.”

As the committee of jurisdiction, HASC has the power to investigate, supervise and review the activities of Defense Department officials and employees and to hold them accountable to the law and the American people. Golden has served on HASC since he joined Congress in 2019.

The full letter can be found here. 

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