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.
The Pentagon fired three people who officials believe leaked information to the press:
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.
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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