Source say three senior Pentagon officials have now been placed on leave amid a probe into media leaks from the Department of Defense. The first was Dan Caldwell, one of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's senior advisers, who was escorted out of the Pentagon by security on Tuesday. Another Hegseth adviser, Darin Selnick, the department's deputy chief of staff, was also escorted out and placed on administrative leave Tuesday, the Hill reports. On Wednesday, the same thing happened to Colin Carroll, chief of staff for Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg, Politico reports.
The investigation reportedly has to do with leaks of sensitive information including military operational plans for the Panama Canal, the pause on collecting intel for Ukraine, Elon Musk's meeting at the Pentagon, and more. But sources tell CNN the three officials butted heads with Hegseth's chief of staff, Joe Kasper, who ordered the investigation into "unauthorized disclosures" in March. "This is a purge of people who had disagreements with the Pentagon chief of staff," says one. Coming in the wake of Signalgate, the situation has more Democrats calling for Hegseth to resign. "This is now the second major breach of classified information by the most senior political appointees in @petehegseth's two months of leadership at DOD," wrote Rep. Daniel Goldman on X. "He should never have been appointed based on merit alone, but now he is a national security threat." (More Pete Hegseth stories.)
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