Dan Caldwell, a senior adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, has been placed on administrative leave and was escorted out of the Pentagon by security on Tuesday, two defense officials said, as confirmed by Newsmax Pentagon reporter Mike Carter.
Also, Pentagon's deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick was suspended and escorted out of the building, according to Politico.
The officials said Caldwell's sudden downfall was tied to an investigation into unauthorized disclosure of department information. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.
According to Politico, those disclosures centered on "military operational plans for the Panama canal, a second carrier headed to the Red Sea, Elon Musk’s controversial visit to the Pentagon and pausing the collection of intelligence to Ukraine."
Caldwell, who served in the Marine Corps, was one of several senior advisers who worked closely with Hegseth. He was the staff member designated as Hegseth's point person in the Signal messaging chat that top Trump administration national security officials, including Hegseth, used to convey plans for a military strike against Houthi militants in Yemen.
The chat, set up by national security adviser Michael Waltz, included a number of Cabinet members and came to light because Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, was added to the group.
Caldwell's ties to the secretary go back to Hegseth's time as the head of Concerned Veterans for America, a nonprofit that fell into financial difficulty during his time there. Caldwell worked at CVA beginning in 2013 as policy director and later as executive director.
Selnick was also the under secretary of Defense for personnel and readiness earlier this year. He served in the White House and the Department of Veterans Affairs in the first Trump administration. He’s also a former senior adviser to CVA under Hegseth.
Caldwell's ouster was first reported by Reuters.
Hegseth's chief of staff, Joe Kasper, wrote in a March 21 memo that the Pentagon was investigating what it said were leaks of national security information. Defense Department personnel could face polygraphs.
The memo referred to "recent unauthorized disclosures" but provided no details. Kasper warned that the investigation would begin immediately and result in a report to Hegseth.
"I expect 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," Kasper said in the memo.
Caldwell, who graduated from Arizona State University in 2011, also worked as a public policy adviser at Defense Priorities, a think tank based in Washington.
This story has been updated.
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