Washington DC - Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has already gone into damage control mode ahead of the release of a potentially damaging Pentagon review into the Signalgate scandal.

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a written statement cited by the Washington Post that the inquiry is "clearly a political witch hunt," and accused members of the review team of being "Biden administration holdovers."

"This entire exercise is a sham, conducted in bad faith and with extreme bias," Parnell insisted.

The inspector general's impending review is expected to be released within weeks.

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In March, Hegseth found himself in hot water after Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of the Atlantic, revealed that he'd been accidentally added to a group chat on Signal in which key Trump administration officials were discussing then-imminent strikes on Yemen, which killed dozens of people including children.

The bipartisan Inspector General review was requested by Republican Senator Roger Wicker, of Mississippi, and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Jack Reed, a Democrat.

"The civilian leadership of the Department of Defense is not above the law," Reed said in a statement, clapping back at Hegseth's team.

"To suggest that the nonpartisan Inspector General is doing anything other than their impartial duties is simply wrong," he said.

"Taxpayers and military personnel deserve to know the truth, and the Inspector General's office has a responsibility to follow all evidence and report its independent findings."