Whiskey Pete Hegseth Finally Finds Some White Men to Purge
Amid all the other news, the purge of suspected leakers Pete Hegseth announced last month has netted three targets — all white men, for a change! Politico has not only provided a roster, but described the scope of the leak investigation.
The Pentagon put a third top official on administrative leave Wednesday as part of a wide-ranging leak investigation, according to a defense official and a person familiar with the matter.
Colin Carroll, chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, was suspended a day after two other political appointees were placed on leave following a probe into potential leaks of sensitive information.
The leaks under investigation include [1] military operational plans for the Panama Canal, [2] a second carrier headed to the Red Sea, [3] Elon Musk’s controversial visit to the Pentagon to discuss China and a [4] pause in the collection of intelligence for Ukraine, according to the official.
[snip]
Dan Caldwell, a senior adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Darin Selnick, the Defense Department’s deputy chief of staff, were escorted out of the Pentagon by security officers and had their building access suspended pending further investigation, the official said. Caldwell and Selnick both previously worked at Concerned Veterans for America, the nonprofit that Hegseth once led. [my annotation]
An Air Force Special Forces Command Chief Master Sergeant was also removed on Monday, though no one has said the investigation described to be targeting him is Pete Hegseth’s purge.
When this investigation was first reported by CNN, it focused on the disclosure to NYT, for a story published on March 20 [1], that Hegseth was about to give Elon Musk a briefing on US war plans against China.
The memo comes after President Donald Trump pushed back on a New York Times report that DOGE head Elon Musk would be briefed on US military plans for a potential war with China while at the Pentagon on Friday. Trump said he wouldn’t show such plans “to anybody.”
And surely that’s a big focus of this investigation. As news of these ousters broke, Marc Caputo released a story ret-conning Trump’s unhappiness with the briefing, claiming, against all sense, that Trump got mad at Elon but not, also, Hegseth about it.
- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suspended two top Pentagon officials, Dan Caldwell and Darin Selnick, as part of an investigation into who leaked word of a planned top-secret briefing on China for Elon Musk.
- Axios learned that Musk or Hegseth didn’t just decide to call off that briefing after the leak. President Trump himself ordered staffers to kill it.
- “What the f**k is Elon doing there? Make sure he doesn’t go,” Trump said, a top official recalled to Axios.
Why it matters: Musk has annoyed several administration officials with his constant presence at the White House, his haphazard social media posts and his slash-and-burn tactics at his Department of Government Efficiency.
- The planned Pentagon briefing, however, got him cross with the boss at the Resolute Desk.
Anyway, no one made sure Elon “doesn’t go;” the currently operative story is Elon went to the Pentagon, but didn’t get the briefing. If Trump were unhappy with the planned briefing, rather than its exposure, I doubt we’d have this kind of leak investigation, which purportedly prevented the briefing from happening.
But Politico mentions three more leaks targeted by the investigation:
- A widely disseminated story [1] disclosing that DOD had developed military plans targeting the Panama Canal; NBC’s story was published March 13.
- The deployment [2] of the USS Carl Vinson from Asia to the Red Sea; the Politico version, which noted USNI reported the news first, was like USNI’s report dated March 21. Both versions report the move first as a month-long extension of the deployment of the USS Harry S. Truman, which was damaged and then repaired in February after being struck by a merchant ship, with the Vinson sailing from East China to the Red Sea to overlap with it. On March 16, the Houthis attempted to attack the Truman in retaliation for the strikes on March 15 ordered up by Pete Hegseth’s signal chat, and potential Houthi disinformation has very recently claimed the Truman has been struck.
- Stories [4] about a pause in intelligence sharing with Ukraine that were quickly and publicly confirmed by John Ratcliffe; here’s Politico’s March 5 version, bylined by one of the guys closely tracking the purge.
So in order, the leaks are:
- March 5 story on Ukraine intelligence sharing
- March 13 story on targeting Panama
- March 20 story on the Elon briefing
- March 21 story on the Vinson redeployment from the East China Sea to the Middle East
With that list in mind, let’s look at several aspects of the memo, dated the same day as the Vinson deployment, March 21, asking for the investigation.
It does, in fact, identify, “unauthorized disclosures of national security information involving sensitive communications with principals within the Office of the Secretary of Defense,” plural. So while the coverage focused on the Elon briefing, it reportedly entailed the others from the start, including the seemingly routine report on the Vinson deployment.
It not only mentioned “sensitive communications with principals within the Office of the Secretary of Defense,” but it asked for cooperation from “those responsible for maintaining and overseeing information security systems and in coordination with federal partners as required.” At first, in the days before Jeff Goldberg revealed Pete Hegseth conducts these discussions (including discussions about the Middle East operations like the Vinson deployment) via Signal chat, it seemed this might have been an investigation into DOD’s secure communications.
But given the inclusion of Dan Caldwell — the guy whom Hegseth instructed Mike Waltz to add as his representative to the famous Signal chat — as the first guy purged suggests this leak investigation could also be about the Signal chat.
Or other Signal chats. Mike Waltz apparently did this all the time.
American Oversight’s lawsuit seeking to preserve the signal chats Goldberg published already disclosed that the actual content of the chats did not get preserved on John Ratcliffe’s personal phone, and that between March 26 and March 28 — after Congress was already investigating — participants changed message settings.
In a filing asking James Boasberg to find that Ratcliffe defied his order submitted yesterday, American Oversight included this timeline of what we know from filings in that suit:
March 24: Excerpts of the Signal chat appear in The Atlantic.1
March 25: American Oversight files this action. On the same day, Defendant Ratcliffe testifies before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence regarding his use of Signal.2
March 26: American Oversight files a motion for temporary restraining order. ECF No. 6. The same day, changes occur in the Signal chat “participants’ administrative settings . . . such as profile names and message settings.” Suppl. Blankenship Decl. ¶ 4, ECF No. 15-3. Also on the same day, The Atlantic publishes further excerpts from the Signal chat.3
March 27: This Court orders Defendants to “promptly make best efforts to preserve all Signal communications from March 11–15, 2025.” Min. Order, Mar. 27, 2025. The same day, the CIA’s Office of General Counsel reportedly issued a litigation hold notice. Blankenship Decl. ¶ 4, ECF No. 10-3.
March 28: Changes occur again in the Signal chat participants’ profile names and message settings. Suppl. Blankenship Decl. ¶ 4, ECF No. 15-3.
March 31: Defendant Ratcliffe’s Signal account is “reviewed” for the first time and found to contain no substantive messages from the Signal chat. Suppl. Blankenship Decl. ¶ 4, ECF No. 15-3.
1 See Jeffrey Goldberg, The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans, The Atlantic (Mar. 24, 2025), https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/trumpadministration-accidentally-texted-me-its-war-plans/682151/.
2 Sen. Select Comm. on Intel. Hr’g to Examine Worldwide Threats Tr., Mar. 25, 2025, available at https://www.dia.mil/Portals/110/Images/News/DIA%20in%20the%20News/Committee_Hearing _2025.pdf.
3 See Jeffrey Goldberg & Shane Harris, Here Are the Attack Plans that Trump’s Advisers Shared on Signal, The Atlantic (March 26, 2025), https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/signal-group-chat-attack-plans-hegsethgoldberg/682176.
All of that took place after Hegseth himself ordered an investigation into leaks including the extension of the Harry S. Truman deployment to fight the Houthis on March 21, the kind of thing that might have been on that Signal chat.
While American Oversight didn’t ask for any other declarations, it did note that the existing declarations [docket] raise real questions about who else, including Whiskey Pete, might have deleted these texts from their devices.
For example, rather than specifying which messages were preserved, the Supplemental DoD Declaration vaguely references the preservation of “existing Signal application messages,” which, as shown by the Supplemental Blankenship Declaration, could be none. Suppl. Bennett Decl. ¶ 2, ECF No. 15-1. Similarly, without specifying whether any substantive messages were preserved, the Supplemental State Declaration merely states that “images of the Signal chat”—including “any” images captured from the Secretary’s devices—have been preserved. See Decl. of Timothy J. Kootz ¶ 4, ECF No. 15-4. As with CIA, those “images of the Signal chat” may simply be the title of the group chat. The Supplemental State Declaration also suggests that Secretary Rubio accessed the Signal chat from multiple devices. Id. More broadly, the evidentiary issues identified in the Supplemental Blankenship Declaration raise substantial questions regarding what these other Defendants actually preserved.
In forthcoming filings, American Oversight will probe the clear deficiencies in Defendants’ recordkeeping practices evidenced by these standout omissions of whether and what substantive messages from the Signal chat still exist, as well as when and how any such messages were lost. [my emphasis]
All of which brings me to the last detail of the original leak announcement that has always struck me: it was set up not as conventional leak investigations are, as a referral to the FBI based on stories that include classified information. That’s how you find out who leaked what if you want all possible culprits involved. Rather, it was set up such that Hegseth himself would get reports on the findings, and from that point, the criminal referrals would go out.
This investigation will commence immediately and culminate in a report to the Secretary of Defense. The report will include a complete record of unauthorized disclosures within the Department of Defense and recommendations to improve such efforts. 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. [my emphasis]
That is, this so-called leak investigation implicating the guy Hegseth would add to his inappropriate Signal chats was set up such that Hegseth himself gets to gatekeep who gets targeted by it.
He appears to have set it up that way, importantly, before he realized a journalist had witnessed him add Dan Caldwell to a Signal chat on which he himself would disseminate battle information to the personal cell phones of multiple list participants, including journalist Jeff Goldberg.
Update: Adding this for timeline considerations. Roger Wicker and Jack Reed asked DOD IG to investigate this on March 27, while participants in the Signal chat were altering names and retention.
[W]e ask that you conduct an inquiry into, and provide us with an assessment of, the following:
1. The facts and circumstances surrounding the above referenced Signal chat incident, including an accounting of what was communicated and any remedial actions taken as a result;
2. Department of Defense (DOD) policies and adherence to policies relating to government officers and employees sharing sensitive and classified information on non-government networks and electronic applications;
3. An assessment of DOD classification and declassification policies and processes and whether these policies and processes were adhered to;
4. How the policies of the White House, Department of Defense, the intelligence community, and other Departments and agencies represented on the National Security Council on this subject differ, if at all;
5. An assessment of whether any individuals transferred classified information, including operational details, from classified systems to unclassified systems, and if so, how;
6. Any recommendations to address potential issues identified.
SecDef is figuring out how many bus victims will let him stay at the Pentagon. However, the trouble with stuffing slime under the rocks is that it will ooze out and covering it all up becomes harder if not impossible. I would also agree that we can’t be certain Elno didn’t get a China briefing or at least a heads-up. GIven his ego, I would have expected he would have said something about getting walled off.
“Do as I say after the fact, not as I did” writ large and without a hint of irony or, heaven forfend, shame. Bottoms up, Pete!
I feel safer already! BTW, did Vlad get the memo?~
It’s nice to see Whiskey Pete show so much concern for “opsec” now. He’s learned his lesson I guess. *sarcasm.
They provide only the best targets for sarcasm. As it happens, that is their single positive attribute.
The addition of a Chief Master Sergeant seems to be lumping together disparate things and targets, to diffract the focus on Whiskey Pete and other Cabinet officers. It’s a process only CEOs and the corporate apology industry could love. Putting an obvious target, such as Hegseth himself, in charge of the investigation and any criminal referrals from it suggests that only the right rotten apples will found at the bottom of the barrel. It’s more likely Hegseth will use such a process to do more spring cleaning of the disloyal.
That would be the senior enlisted man in the SF community. In other words, someone with friends all over the Pentagon who will back him over Whiskey Pete because of shared service in tough places. In my time, a wise officer would be aware of what can be done by the enlisted and how hard it would be to fix things if they were insulted, and not push unnecessarily.
I hear you, but I can’t help thinking there’s another group who look at him and just shake their heads as they think WTF.
Hegseth left the Reserves as a major, and he strikes me as the kind of major who’d shoot the breeze with a bunch of captains over a lot of booze, regaling them with how bad the generals are screwing things up and how *he’d* be a helluva lot better. And as long as Whiskey Pete kept buying, the captains would keep nodding.
Some of those captains may be colonels by now, with less than fond memories of a blowhard.
My understanding is that the rank which separates the keepers from the others is Colonel. You can go as far as Lieutenant Colonel on average skills but it takes something more (and probably some politics) to go further up the ladder. The rank of Major is much lower on the totem pole.
Something does seem screwy in removing the Air Force’s top non-commissioned officer in its special forces community, owing to a claimed “loss of confidence.” Sounds like cover, which Trump used when he alleged performance problems, to fire thousands of USG employees, who, in fact, received stellar reviews.
That rank would have been earned over decades. He would have quite a network. The Air Force also takes great pride in having that specialty, and fought hard to get, to keep up with the other services. So, either the problem is straightforward, which would be atypical for Hegseth and Trump, or those two guys just pissed off a lot of highly competitive service members with a unique set of skills.
No, I added him. I included him bc he would have knowledge of some if not all of the leaks except the Elon one.
As described, it sounds like he may have committed another sin–such as said that women can take on combat roles. But I included him bc by timing it could be related.
And let me make something else more explicit. I don’t think the reports on the Vinson move would be considered remotely sensitive normally. Reports like that make up the bulk of what USNI reports.
So there’s something else sensitive about it, IMO. Possibly it just amounted to early notice of Trump’s warmongering on Iran (which would be pertinent to the Signal chat).
But I also wonder whether Trump is trying to hide damage to the Truman.
What if, just as a hypothetical, the March 15 strike led to a successful Houthi strike on March 16? What IF Trump did something stupid enough that it might pose a risk to a carrier?
Particularly given Trump’s defense of the Signal chat relying on the purported success of an operation that has had no more success than Biden’s efforts did, it might suggest there’s a much bigger secret there.
If hiding damage was the point, then it would not remain operative for long. Also, remember the Truman was involved in a collision with the MV Besiktas at the northern entrance to the Suez Canal, but the reports I’ve seen wouldn’t put the carrier out of action for long if at all. It is possible the Houthis are using that as their proof of ‘damage’.
Yes. The collision is mentioned in my post.
February collision.
February repair.
March attempted strike.
March Vinson deployment.
April claimed successful strike.
If the Houthis had pictures (and drones can be pretty stealthy) we would see them soon. I don’t think 5th Fleet will release anything for fairly obvious Opsec reasons, but I also think there would have been symptoms that all was not well.
As for the Vinson being there, a mission overlap makes some sense and it would certainly give the USN the capability to overwhelm the Houthis as well as Iran in the air. We’ll see. However, I’ve sailed those waters when I was on the Chuckboat.
Under the Houthi strike hypothetical, wouldn’t that make Trump look very weak?
Getting one of ours hit and turning tail?
If he was covering up something like that, I would expect to see all sorts of irrational decisions and his normal practice of creating chaos in several directions to distract the public.
This reminds me of the plot line for the recnet season of “The Diplomat” (Netflix) in which the English are striving hard to keep the United Kingdom together. One of the PM’s underlings takes matters into her own hands to give the people a common enemy to band together against, by staging a light, casualty-free bombing of a UK warship in the Middle East. Of course, it goes wrong and results in the deaths of multiple sailors. The layers of politics, scheming, and distrust involved are many and disgusting.
What’s fascinating is that many had thought the PM himself was behind it, when he was, in fact, not. I guess my question is, why does your comment call to mind this entirely fictional episode?
Memory Hole, I can’t tell if you intend your closing sentence sarcastically (“I would expect to see all sorts of irrational decisions and his normal practice of creating chaos in several directions to distract the public.”)–which is the only way it makes sense to me.
After all, what have we seen from Trump (or Hegseth, for that matter) BUT irrational decisions on everything from tariffs to defying SCOTUS?
At this point, the distractions have become kaleidoscopic: every one serves to distract from every other one, and, especially, the fractured whole.
Those of us with long memories recall how Reagan skedaddled out of Beirut after the Marine barracks there were hit with a truck bomb. Cut and run, indeed.
@Ginevra diBenci above. It was kind of a mix of sarcasm and just the general Trump scandal survival strategy. Your last paragraph describes it perfectly. “kaleidoscopic distractions.”.
It’s always hard to tell which scandals or crimes he is keeping our eyes away from.
Despicables hate sunlight on their shady shenanigans.
Hegseth has two qualities that to Trump are critical: 1) devout loyalty to Trump 2) a tough-guy image that would make him a successful professional wrestler.
In the new USA, a sad realization is that Trump seems to be correct. It’s all about image.
Imagery and showmanship have been Trump’s alpha and omega his adult life. Whiskey Pete has several other attributes Trump prizes: rampant misogyny and xenophobia (neither of which Trump could spell); a string of allegations about his long-time sexual abuse; his need for and/or love of money; and his fervent belief that the only thing that floats to the top is cream. All make him predictable and extraordinarily unlikely to stand on principle, let alone to uphold the Constitution or his oath of office.
“Imagery and showmanship have been Trump’s alpha and omega his adult life. ”
Yes. And this is why it helps to think of Trump actions not as those of a politician, but as a dramatist, a screenwriter, an impresario. It’s all about the story maintaining and escalating the storyline. The thrills and chills.
A pro wrestler. The kayfabe is All.
Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy are at a society party. Edgar is agog. “Here we are, Charlie, with the 400, the cream of society. Do you know why they call it the cream of society? Because cream rises to the top!”
“Yeah,” Charlie replies, “so does the scum.”
A home truth learned from the movies when I was a teenager.
“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.” — Sinclair Lewis.
During Hegseth’s confirmation hearing I so wanted him to be asked about his jacket — if the lining was (as others had been) lined with a representation of a (desecrated) American flag, asked about his “Crusader’s Cross” tattoos, and asked whether we (the people) should be worried, given what Sinclair Lewis predicted: that he is a fascist.
Sinclair Lewis; novelist and short-story writer (1885-1951).
“It Can’t Happen Here”
Caldwell makes little sense if he is being pinned for Signal chats. If he was invited into them, and is being forced out in a way that leaves him out in the cold from conservative welfare: speaking fees, ghostwritten books, sinecure at a think tank, etc., then he has either the goods saved or can testify times/dates to obtain records of chat usage.
Great timeline, bunch of hypocrite scumbags running the show.
Pedantic observation: Whisky or Whiskey?
https://whiskyadvocate.com/whisky-vs-whiskey-differences
Is this an Irish thang?
Have pedantry, will travel. Whisky is the standard spelling in British English. Whiskey, the standard spelling in Ireland and in America English.
Another bites the dust. Whiskey Pete has made dod spokesperson John Ullyot resign.
This is starting to evoke memories of The Treasure of Sierra Madre. Pete Hegseth would struggle to wring much material treasure from his position; its value to him lies in the promise of sufficient (unearned) honor and glory as to wash away his prior blemished record. Now that he’s displaying his unfitness in blatantly public ways, the only way to hold on to the treasure is to deflect the dishonor onto others.
Will he just keep firing Defense Department staff until no one is left except himself? In that case, who will take the ultimate blame?
think i read it here:
“in MAGA, every accusation is an admission.”
I appreciate your comment. Almost universally, I see this stated as
but to me, “confession” is a bit more heavyweight. These people make these accusations without a hint of hesitation.
Alternative theory… the have, or were about to, cooperate with the DoD IG investigation in some way. Throw them under the bus for disloyalty, later painting them as “disgruntled” losers.
Along side your theory is the disturbing report of the NLRB employee who recently went public about DOGE.
He caught them stealing data and also noticed that just afterward several access attempts were made from a Russian ip address.
After preparing a request for help he received a threatening message taped to his door, which included drone pictures of him walking his dog.
In Trumpland, doing the right thing is not tolerated.
Truly frightening stuff! I am surprised this incident hasn’t been covered yet on EW! It really sounds like someone in Russia is helping with the DOGE infiltration of a lot of these government IT systems. I have my doubts that a 23 year old recent college grad could pull it off, the way an experienced FSB cyberspook could! The Russia Russia Russia so-called hoax continues to dog Donald Trump…..
[1] looks like it could be someone getting drunk and saying too much a reporter.
[2] as you say, this doesn’t make much sense. Relatively routine aircraft carrier movements probably can’t be kept that secret.
[3] and [4] are the ones that interest me. Those both look like things that even relatively loyal employees might think are just beyond the pale, and somebody needed to leak it. And I really want to know if Elon did or didn’t get his briefing on China. There are a lot of places in the DC area that Elon can just barge into with his legion of goons and get whatever he wants. The Pentagon is not one of them.
Good grief it might be easier for whiskey Pete to say who he DIDN’T disclose ops plans to on signal. I’d bet these revelations came from the three people he canned.