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The Pentagon has placed three senior officials on administrative leave as part of an expanding investigation into leaked national security information.
Some shit you should know before you read: Back in March, the Pentagon launched an internal probe after several unauthorized disclosures reached the press. One major flashpoint was a report suggesting tech billionaire Elon Musk would receive a classified Pentagon briefing on potential war plans with China—an allegation denied by the White House and the Pentagon. Other leaks, like the movement of another aircraft carrier to the Red Sea and military plans for the Panama Canal, heightened concerns over internal security. In response, Joe Kasper, chief of staff to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, issued a March 21 memo ordering a full investigation and authorizing the use of polygraphs “in accordance with applicable law and policy.”
What’s going on now: In a notable development, the Pentagon put Dan Caldwell, Darin Selnick, and Colin Carroll on administrative leave amid the classified leak investigation. Caldwell, a senior adviser to Defense Secretary Hegseth, is a veteran and former policy staffer at Defense Priorities and Concerned Veterans for America, both tied to conservative national security circles. His name surfaced in a Signal messaging thread disclosed by The Atlantic, where national security officials—including Hegseth—discussed upcoming strikes on Houthi positions in Yemen. In that chat, Caldwell was named as the Pentagon’s liaison to the National Security Council. Reports circulating say Caldwell may have shared classified material with outsiders, including members of the media.
Selnick, who served as Hegseth’s deputy chief of staff, was suspended alongside Caldwell. A veteran, Selnick helped drive Trump’s policies related to DEI and the military’s ban on transgenders. While his work didn’t involve overseas operations like Caldwell’s, he’s reportedly being looked at as part of a broader breach involving sensitive internal communications. Some leaks under investigation allegedly relate to high-level planning around the Panama Canal and changes to intelligence-sharing with Ukraine.
The third official, Colin Carroll, served as chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg and is a Marine reservist with experience in tech-driven defense systems. Before taking the Pentagon role, Carroll held positions at Anduril Industries, a company known for developing autonomous weapons, and at the Pentagon’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center. Details on Carroll’s specific involvement are still murky, but some news outlets say he was removed after a meeting with investigators.
This all comes as the inspector general has launched a separate investigation into the Signal group chat in which senior national security officials discussed highly sensitive military operations. The chat gained national attention after The Atlantic reported that its editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was “mistakenly” added to the conversation, exposing discussions about planned US airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen. The messages included real-time operational details. The inspector general’s probe is now focused on whether the use of Signal violated security protocols and whether any criminal breaches of classified handling occurred.
