Hegseth suspends 2 senior political aides amid Pentagon leak inquiry
Two senior aides to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, both political appointees, have been suspended amid a Pentagon inquiry into the apparent leak of sensitive information, defense officials said.
Dan Caldwell, a senior adviser to Hegseth, and Darin Selnick, the secretary’s deputy chief of staff, were removed from the Pentagon this week, officials said on the condition of anonymity to discuss a personnel shake-up that has roiled the former Fox News personality’s inner circle. One official said it appears Caldwell and Selnick will be the only government officials targeted in the inquiry “for now,” but left open the possibility that the purge could widen.
The Pentagon’s steady tumult under Hegseth’s leadership has drawn fierce criticism from Democrats and former top Defense Department leaders alarmed by the apparent politicization of a nonpartisan institution.
Last month, administration officials sidelined another senior Defense Department political appointee, John Ullyot, who had clashed with colleagues at the Pentagon. He was moved to a special projects role after serving as press secretary.
Hegseth also has overseen the removal of close to a dozen senior military leaders, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the top admiral in the Navy, both of whom he had criticized for their focus on diversity initiatives.
Sean Parnell, a spokesman for Hegseth, did not respond to requests for comment.
Caldwell and Selnick had been given significant responsibilities in the three months since President Donald Trump returned to office, with Caldwell handling a variety of foreign policy issues and Selnick issuing several public statements concerning Trump’s effort to drastically cut the federal workforce.
Caldwell, a Marine Corps veteran, previously worked with Hegseth at Concerned Veterans for America, a nonprofit that Hegseth led from 2013 to 2016 while also serving in the Army National Guard. Selnick, an Air Force veteran, worked as a senior adviser at CVA from 2019 to 2024.
It was not immediately clear what either man is accused of disclosing without permission, but the decision to sideline them coincides with calls from Hegseth’s chief of staff, Joe Kasper, for an investigation into the “unauthorized disclosures of national security information.” Kasper announced the inquiry last month.
“This investigation will commence immediately and culminate in a report to the Secretary of Defense,” Kasper wrote in a March 21 memo. He added that he wanted to be “informed immediately if this effort results in information identifying a party responsible for an unauthorized disclosure, and that such information will be referred to the appropriate criminal law enforcement entity for criminal prosecution.”
It was not clear Tuesday whether Caldwell or Selnick had been referred for prosecution or if their cases were being handled administratively instead. Reuters first reported Caldwell’s case, while Politico first reported Selnick’s. Efforts to reach both men were unsuccessful.
The suspensions come as Hegseth and other senior administration officials face ongoing scrutiny for their own handling of sensitive information. Last month, the Atlantic magazine reported that its top editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, was inadvertently added to an unclassified group chat on the commercial messaging application Signal in which numerous key advisers to Trump discussed plans for a U.S. military attack on militants in Yemen.
Michael Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, mistakenly included the journalist, while Hegseth disclosed details about the military operation before it occurred. Such information typically is considered so highly classified that it requires code word access and a secure line of communication, former defense officials have said.
Hegseth has vehemently denied assertions that what he shared in the group chat contained classified material. The Defense Department inspector general’s office will scrutinize the disclosures, it said this month.