Hegseth: Evidence Against Leakers ‘Will be Handed Over to DOJ’
“We don’t think, based on what we understand, that it’s going to be a good day for a number of those individuals because of what was found in the investigation.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon will hand over any evidence against the three alleged Pentagon leakers to the DOJ:
When you dismiss people who you believe are leaking classified information. And again, the investigation is ongoing and that will take time. And if, when the evidence produced, it will go to DOJ. Why would it surprise anybody, Brian, if those very same people keep leaking to the very same reporters, whatever information they think they can have to try to sabotage the agenda of the president or the secretary?
So once a leaker, always a leaker, often a leaker.
And so we looked for leakers because we take it very seriously, and we will do the investigation. And if those people are exonerated, fantastic. We don’t think, based on what we understand, that it’s going to be a good day for a number of those individuals because of what was found in the investigation.
So if they want to keep leaking and pushing and pedaling things that try to sabotage the president’s agenda, that’s unfortunate, but that’s how leaking works in this town.
We’re focused on recruiting, on rooting out DEI, on securing our southwest border, on the president’s agenda, and it’s going very well to Pentagon and I’m proud of it.
. @SecDef set the record straight on the LEAKERS:
"Those Folks who were leaking and who were pushed out the building are now attempting to LEAK and SABOTAGE the president’s agenda and what we’re doing…" pic.twitter.com/FokhW7jCdt
— DOD Rapid Response (@DODResponse) April 22, 2025
The Pentagon fired three people who officials believe leaked information to the press:
- Colin Carroll, chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg
- Dan Caldwell, a top adviser to Hegseth
- Darin Selnick, the Defense Department’s deputy chief of staff
Hegseth told Brian Kilmeade that Signal chats have been leaked to sabotage Trump.
The New York Times claimed four people told the publication Hegseth had another Signal chat about the Yemen bombing, which included his wife, brother, and others in his personal life. The sources also said he used his personal phone, not the government-issued one.
Have we even seen the chats? Jeffrey Goldberg released screenshots of the ones he witnessed.
Now, it sounds like the secretary tied the latest Signal chat leak to those alleged leakers:
You remember when this all started? The first go around? Because this is the second go around, right? They pedal old stuff, they kick it back up. I said repeatedly, no one’s texting war plans. You know why I said that? Because I’m in the bowels of the Pentagon every single day. Just ten minutes ago, I was looking at actual war plans of things that were ongoing or pending things to happen because that’s on a regular basis on classified systems. That’s my job for the war, fighters for the president of the United States.
I look at war plans every single day. What was shared over Signal then and now, however you characterize it, was informal, unclassified coordinations for media, coordination, other things. That’s what I’ve said from the beginning.
At the beginning, it was left wing reporters from The Atlantic, who got a hold of it and then wanted to create a problem for the president. This is what it’s all about, trying to get at President Trump and his agenda now here at the Defense Department, because, Brian, I want this to be very clear, we take the classification of information very important. It’s very significant to us that we safeguard it.
And so when we had leaks, which we have had here, we did a serious leak investigation, and through that leak investigation, unfortunately, we found some folks that we believe, in this point, those folks who were leaking, who have been pushed out of the building are now attempting to leak and sabotage the president’s agenda and what we’re doing and that’s unfortunate.
It’s not what I do. It’s not how we operate and so you’ve got another allegation being pushed again, not based on how we’re operating around here. We’re for the warfighters. We’re for the president.
🇺🇸 SEC. HEGSETH: CHAT LEAKS AIM TO SABOTAGE TRUMP’S AGENDA
"I look at war plans every single day.
What was shared over signal then and now, however you characterize it, was informal, unclassified, coordinations for media coordination, other things.
At the beginning, it was… https://t.co/5Yhi0bYhG7 pic.twitter.com/oaO73xlPpU
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) April 22, 2025
Caldwell posted a joint statement from all of them on X:
We are incredibly disappointed by the manner in which our service at the Department of Defense ended. Unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door. All three of us served our country honorably in uniform – for two of us, this included deployments to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And, based on our collective service, we understand the importance of information security and worked every day to protect it. At this time, we still have not been told what exactly we were investigated for, if there is still an active investigation, or if there was even a real investigation of “leaks” to begin with. While this experience has been unconscionable, we remain supportive of the Trump-Vance Administration’s mission to make the Pentagon great again and achieve peace through strength. We hope in the future to support those efforts in different capacities.
The three men said no one told them why they were fired.
Fox News reported:
Experts claim they are not entitled to an explanation until the investigation has concluded, as it is typical security protocol to limit potential suspects’ authorization and access.
Even if the investigation ends in their favor, as civilian political appointees, they can be fired at-will. If it goes the opposite way, they could lose their security clearances or face criminal charges.
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Comments
It’s interesting to me that some leaks seem to be coming from Neocon-friendly sources while other leaks are coming from the Tucker Carlson school of defense policy. Whatever the case, no one who offers unauthorized information to the media is working in an administration to advance the policy goals of POTUS. They’re there to advance their own policy goals. Trump has apparently learned his lesson from his first term and has pushed all-in on aggressively pursuing and punishing those who choose to undermine him. Good. To ignore it invites death by a thousand cuts.
As has been said, just because you *can* do something doesn’t necessarily mean you *should*. Especially if doing it can have a profoundly bad result.
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I think the leak of Vance’s opposition our operation to keep shipping thru the Red Sea (i.e. the Suez Canal route) open is useful. He’s wrong, and he’s way outvoted, so I have no concern that in this administration the amplification of his position will reverse our policy.
And knowing this even before the leak he went along with the majority, but it’s good to know his actual views, relative to the 2028 race.
That just tells me these leakers are novices, and they somehow think they can push their own policy agendas instead of the President’s. Experienced leakers would not have gotten caught, at least not this quickly. These people are greenhorns. Experienced Deep State leakers will have close, longstanding relationships with key reporters, and those reporters will be maximally judicious in what is published and when, so as not to burn their inside contacts.
But Tucker’s narrative is not quite that. He claims that the reason for the firings is that these three people consistently opposed neocon forever-warmongering (i.e., the swamp is still active in State and IC), and the “leak” claim was an excuse fabricated by the usual suspects to get them ejected.
The IC is superb at creating such storms on demand, all the way up to full-fledged Crossfire Hurricanes. Suggesting that the truth will eventually out, but not before their targets’ careers are entirely snuffed. Few people survive this tactic, billionaire Trump being one of them.
It makes me wonder if the “Leaked” content was put out there specifically to see if got leaked. Set the trap and see who bites.
Fish, meet bait. It’s all yours. Enjoy!
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Honeypot is entirely possible.
That kind of thing is done all the time. It is one of the best ways of catching leakers.
Hegseth wants to reform the procurement process. That is going to ruffle a lot of feathers. The Quartermaster Corps has been corrupt since before Benedict Arnold. Something we inherited from the British.
Yes, but the three who were fired were all political appointees that he brought in, not career Pentagon staffers.
Hegseth will find his scapegoats. Alcoholics usually refuse to take responsibility for their mistakes.
Personal experience I wager based on your posting here.
“Alcoholics usually refuse to take responsibility for their mistakes.”
As ztakddot notes below, you seem to have personal experience with this.
You really are the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man of the Legal Insurrection commentariat.
Assumes facts not in evidence. That the man likes a drink doesn’t make him an alcoholic.
Troll being trollish again. Pathetic.
…pour encourager les autres…
msm having a field day with alll this and you know what??
so what
fire the anti americans or those that dont want to go along with maga
Question: who hired the three people fired? Whoever did has shown incredibly bad judgment.
Hegseth hired them, ultimately. Even if the decision was made several layers down from him.
“…they could lose their security clearances or face criminal charges.”
And what punishment? Are we talking wrist slap stuff, or actual jail time?
Depends on what exactly they did. Remember these are people from our side, not the enemy.
I disagree with VP Vance about the Suez Canal. It’s pretty basic that the route through the Suez Canal should remain open, “even though” Europe is a beneficiary.
The leaks are beneficial, maybe unintentionally, for showing Vance’s proclivities on this issue. DeSantis or Rubio 2028!
True but European navies have enough firepower to punish the Houthis in Yemen.
Since their ships have been attacked and their economies harmed they should at the very least actively participate with the American Navy in countering this terrorist assault.
European navies absolutely do NOT have enough naval assets to punish the Houthis in any sustained much less substantive way. Euro militaries are no longer capable of engaging in expeditionary actions without robust support from us. That’s the logistical reality. They couldn’t even mount a credible campaign against Libya, a country that sits in the Med. All but a handful of the cruise missiles that were fired came from US navy ships. 80% of the air power was US, even though that engagement was (laughably) advertised as a joint UK/France operation.
Until the EU has a truly unified command under a new Caesar, they will not be capable of any kind of large, coordinated military operations. Right now the EU is the equivalent of the USA prior to 1789. They need a new Constitution more than anything else.
I stand corrected. Just looked up UK and French Naval forces. I had no idea they had so few ships.
Striking terror into the hearts of Eurotrash yacht-partiers everywhere!
Whether or not they could, they aren’t and wouldn’t. They may be ideologically aligned with the Houthis, whereas I want them cleared out of Yemen.
We can’t count on the Europeans here (or in much else).
For FAR too long Europe has used THEIR defense money to subsidize their welfare systems while US TAXPAYERS’ DOLLARS have been spent to PROTECT European interests! When PRESIDENT TRUMP initially forced NATO members to HONOR their COMMITMENTS, the left contended it would be the END of the WORLD!! HOW DAY WE? HE!!!
This is costing us a lot of money and what does the US gain. Never mind how much it costs to maintain a carrier group in this area there is the cost associated with its operations. We are sometimes using 2M+ missiles to take down 40K (or cheaper) drones. Again what is the exact benefit to us?
Now we’re blowing up infrastructure the Houthis are using. They’re losing their ability to launch and control those drones. It’s sad to blow these things up but there seems to be no other way to move them out and return Yemen to the Yemenis and to a neutral foreign policy.
It’s a part of our multi-front war against Iran. It won’t be easy because Russia now seems willing to accept a stalemate in Ukraine which would allow it to pay more attention to its ally Iran. But we need to take the Houthis off the board, which would also benefit several others in the ME that are afraid of Iran.
The Houthis are attacking US ships, so we have to whack them, if only to make an example of them.
That carrier group costs about th sme no maer where they sail. Same men, same daily costs, nuclear fuel is same cos wheher cruising or at anchor.
Those sea lanes need o remain open vor our own securiy, and vor the ocean traffic that benefits us.
Having the Red Sea route closed by the troublemakers in he area cost the US economy an YUUUUUGE amount of money on many levels. Wonder why the price of coffee rose so sharply a couple years back> A large portion of the North American supply moved through the Red Sea to US ports. I am in the coffee business, and I certainly noticed.
For one thing, it lets us trade with Asia into our eastern ports even if California decides to block traffic through its ports — as has already happened.
Do you want to depend on the good graces of Gavin Newsom? I don’t.
an artful choke. Thanks. The Gabbling Nuisance in the same sentence with “good graces”?
Riddle me this: If Hegseth’s chat is limited to a small group of friends and family, how is staff involved to the point where they can leak the contents of the chat?
And One Burned, Twice Learned, when is the SecDef going to get the message? He’s in hostile territory, he can’t afford these kinds of mistakes.
This sort of amateur phuckery really really detracts from the President’s agenda. Hayzeus Maria get your poop together Hegseth! You can’t blame the Deep State forever.
In case you missed the point, we are speculating that the second lapse was actually a deliberate trap to catch the leakers, and it may have worked. It also revealed that we have a loudmouth RINO on the Armed Services Committee named Bacon who needs to be muzzled or primaried.