Great chaos behind the scenes of the Pentagon. "It was a period of hell." Pete Hegseth out

The Department claimed that it would carry out a polygraph test within the framework of the investigation, but no of the 3 employees were investigated by a lie detector. In fact, at least 1 of them told his erstwhile colleagues that the investigators had informed him that he would shortly be officially cleared of any wrongdoing. Unfortunately, Hegseth's squad developed a habit anonymous dissemination of easy overthrown lies About your colleagues.

On Friday, POLITICO reported that Hegsetha's chief of staff, Joe Kasper, is leaving the post. Kasper requested an investigation into leaks from the Pentagon that reportedly included military operational plans for Panama Canal and a break in gathering intelligence for Ukraine.

Hegseth leads now strange and amazing purgatorywho left him without 2 closest advisors for more than a decade and without chiefs of staff with him and his deputy. According to rumors in the building, there could be further layoffs. In short, under Hegseth's leadership, the Pentagon is in disarray.

Fortunately, I didn't fall victim to that cleaning in management. Like Caldwell and Selnick, I've been in favour of the secretary for years. In December, erstwhile his approval by the legislature seemed threatened, I wrote a column in which I powerfully argued that he was The best man to shake the Pentagonwho needs major reforms.

A period later, Hegseth invited me to head the department at the beginning of his time at the Pentagon. public affairsand then most likely took another position in the department.

Together, we have achieved a lot, including introducing new, mostly more conservative media into the Pentagon press space and Make certain the public understands Trump's commitment to rebuilding our military. After 4 years of drift under president Joe Biden and his defence secretary Lloyd Austin. It consisted, among others, of a divisional identity policy and lowering advanced standards of body composition and physical fitness in uniform services.

Last week, a period after leaving my position in the department public affairsI respectfully rejected the secretary's generous proposal and I informed him of my decision to leave the department.Wishing him the best. I value his friendship, and I'm grateful he gave me the chance to serve. I respect his leadership in helping the president to make America strong again.

However, even determined supporters of the secretary, specified as myself, must admit: The last period at the Pentagon was a crisis. — and this is becoming a real problem for the administration.

Signalgate is the tip of the iceberg

First it was Signalgate. The Secretary shared detailed operational plans, including the schedules and details of the forthcoming military strike on Huti, Yemen via the Signal chat group, to which a media typical accidentally went.

David B. Gleason / CC BY-SA 2.0/Wikimedia Commons

Pentagon building. Illustration image

When Signalgate's communicative came to light, Hegseth followed the disastrous advice on crisis communication from his fresh squad public affairs. Somehow he was convinced to effort to overthrow the reports through vague, "clinton" pseudo-denialthat "no 1 sent war plans on chat". It was a violation of PR regulation number 1 — bad news immediately.

His vague denial prompted reporter Jeffrey Goldberg to publishing full chat Hegsetha with detailed operational plans. This has already changed a loud thread into a weeks-long shame for the president's national safety team. Hegseth is now faced with the Inspector General's investigation into possible leakage of classified information and breaches of record-keeping protocols.

It was only the beginning of the period from hell. "Wall Street Journal" and another sources study that Hegseth "bred his wife, a erstwhile Fox News producer, to 2 meetings with abroad military, where confidential information was discussed".

The Pentagon then organised a top secret briefing of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on China for Elona Muska, who inactive has extended business interests in China. Having found out, The White home canceled this meeting..

Finally, there was a cleanup. And the news keeps coming. On Sunday evening, "The fresh York Times" reported that Hegseth shared details of Yemen's impact on other chat rooms where his wife and brother attended.

It is very likely that We're about to have another media bomb.. The most crucial reporters specialising in Pentagon cases have already reported this privately.

The president deserves better.

The Americans gave Trump a decisive triumph last November, among others, due to the fact that he is not a polite product of the Washington elite as many of his fresh predecessors, but alternatively a clever businessman who expects results and draws its squad to responsibility for serious mistakes. Just ask the secretaries of Jim Mattis, Mark Esper, Rex Tillerson, David Shulkin, Tom Price and Ryan Zinke. All of them, like Hegseth, are good people and patriots whom Trump released during his first word of office erstwhile he felt that their results were insufficient.

PAP/EP/SAMUEL CORUM / POOL

president Donald Trump in the mediate of an Easter organization in front of the White House. Washington, April 22, 2025.

Biden acted precisely the other way. First there was the Secretary of Defense, liable for failed withdrawal from Afghanistan, which then He disappeared for six days., without informing his staff or the White House. The Transport Secretary refused to visit the site of a major railway accident and a catastrophic chemical spill for respective weeks. And the Secretary of State allowed Chinese officials to teach themselves about racial relations, Biden has not held 1 of his squad responsible And he let them get distant with everything.

During his first term, Trump suffered more national safety victories than any president has for at least a generation or longer. He defied the Communist aggression of China, reinforced our partnerships on Indo-Pacific, started America's long-awaited exit from Afghanistan, eliminated the ISIS Caliphate and killed his leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, among another large victories.

During the first 3 months of his second term, Trump continued this wonderful national safety legacy, in peculiar refocusing the Department of defence on his basic mission to prepare for the fight and win wars. Unfortunately, after a terrible month, the Pentagon no longer focuses on leading a war, but on endless drama.

The president deserves better than the current chaos at the Pentagon.. Given his accomplishments in bringing earlier cabinet members to account, many in the secretary's interior ellipse will quietly applaud if Trump decides to do the same in a short time for the head of the Department of Defense.