Pete Hegeth Adviser in Signal Group Chat Suddenly Put on Leave
A top adviser for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was abruptly placed on administrative leave after he was connected to an information leak at the Department of Defense, Reuters reported Tuesday.
Dan Caldwell was escorted from the Pentagon Tuesday and is being investigated for an “unauthorized disclosure” of classified DOD information, an anonymous U.S. official told Reuters.
It’s unclear what leaked intelligence Caldwell is being investigated for, but he was wrapped up in last month’s Signalgate scandal, in which members of Donald Trump’s Cabinet discussed U.S. military plans to bomb the Houthis in Yemen in a Signal group chat that also happened to include The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg. Along with Caldwell, 18 Trump officials were presumed to be part of the chat, including Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, and national security adviser Mike Walz.
The following week, the DOD released a memo requesting an investigation into the “recent unauthorized disclosures of national security information.”
“This investigation will commence immediately and culminate in a report to the Secretary of Defense,” the memo, written by Hegseth’s chief of staff, Joe Kasper, reads. “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.”
Caldwell’s investigation “remains ongoing,” the U.S. official told Reuters.