Updated April 30, 2025 at 1:45 PM PDT
The Republican majority in the House of Representatives has blocked an inquiry into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's use of the encrypted messaging app Signal.
Hegseth shared sensitive details about military operations conducted against Houthis in Yemen in March in two different group chats, including one that involved his wife, brother and personal lawyer.
Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., told Morning Edition that House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Republicans blocked any inquiry resolutions into the matter because they know Hegseth and his actions are "indefensible." Smith filed a resolution of inquiry, which allows a member of the House to force an investigation even when they're in the minority.
"They are so afraid of this issue — they can't defend it — that they don't want to talk about it," Smith said. "And they will go to extraordinary process lengths to try to prevent Congress from doing its job of exercising oversight over the Pentagon."
Johnson said before the Tuesday vote that it was meant to prevent "nonsensical waste of our time" and that the majority was using House rules "to prevent political hijinks and political stunts."
Smith spoke to NPR's Steve Inskeep about his blocked resolution and current limits on congressional oversight.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
Steve Inskeep: What did House Republicans do Tuesday when you tried to use your power to force an investigation?
Rep. Adam Smith: They passed a rule basically to shut off resolutions of inquiry to not allow them, which basically frustrates the democratic process. And there's a theme there in terms of what the Trump administration has been doing all over the place, changing the rules, not allowing open public discussion in the normal democratic process to take place. And I guess there's substance and there is this process here. And the substance is they are so afraid of this issue — they can't defend it — that they don't want to talk about it. And they will go to extraordinary process lengths to try to prevent Congress from doing its job of exercising oversight over the Pentagon. And as you know from the Signal story, Secretary Hegseth really needs oversight, given his use of sensitive information in a way that is incredibly dangerous.
Inskeep: Now, there are two ways to look at this, I suppose, and one is in an institutional sense. There is Congress. You're separate from the executive branch. You're supposed to give oversight. You're supposed to defend your institution. And I think that's what you're saying you're trying to do. But let me ask about another thing. There's also the House majority, and they try to run things as much as possible. You've been in Congress a long time, including when Democrats were in the majority. Have Democrats welcomed Republican demands for investigations in the past?
Smith: We've never welcomed them. But there are rules put in place so that the minority can be heard. That's part of a representative democracy. Not to get in the whole Founding Fathers Constitution thing, but that was one thing they really wanted to make sure. The majority controls, and in the end they will probably win if they have the votes. But you want to make sure that minority voices are heard. That's part of having a representative democracy. It's part of having people have a voice in their government. You want to allow for those debates, even if in the end you lose the vote.
And what Republicans are doing now is they're trying to shut off even the discussion and the debate. And actually the reconciliation process was interesting. Now in the Armed Services Committee, they gave us an extra $150 billion. So we're spending money, not cutting it. But we on the minority side raised a whole series of amendments about what happened with Signalgate and what Hegseth was doing. Republicans just didn't say anything. They just voted them all down. They refused to even speak one time to defend the secretary, I guess, because they know he's indefensible. So they want to shut down the debate and not have the conversation. And that is really important because forget how you feel about the issue. We're America. We're a representative government. We're supposed to have the opportunity to have debate, discussion, and they are trying to shut that down.
Inskeep: I just want to remember again: The majority tries to run things, and the majority that is connected with the president is going to try to protect the president to some extent. But would you make the argument that, in this case, in this year, Congress is effectively neutering itself, going farther than a majority normally would to shut down debate and avoid their own institutional job to be a check on the president?
Smith: A hundred percent. This is unprecedented. At the end of the day, we'll have the vote if they want to vote the way they vote. They win — that's great. But what they're trying to do is they're trying to shut down the debate. They don't want to have the conversation. And again, I will submit it's like they know that they cannot defend Pete Hegseth. So they just want to make the entire issue go away and not allow people to talk about it. And everybody ought to be concerned about that.
NPR disclosure: Katherine Maher, the CEO of NPR, chairs the board of the Signal Foundation.
Julie Depenbrock and Nia Dumas produced the radio version of this story.
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