A former top adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was accused of leaking sensitive information to the media, claims he was fired as part of an elaborate deep state plot.
Dan Caldwell, who was one of three officials escorted from the Pentagon last week, maintains that he was not responsible for the leaked information, which has since prompted calls for his former boss to be dismissed.
Speaking to Tucker Carlson on the conservative commentator’s podcast Monday, Caldwell instead suggested that the purge was linked to his loyalty to Hegseth and President Donald Trump.
“We had people who had personal vendettas against us, and I think they weaponized the investigation against us. I think that’s part of what’s going on here,” he said on The Tucker Carlson Show.
Caldwell’s remarks came a day after The New York Times revealed Sunday that Hegseth allegedly shared details of military strikes in Yemen last month in a second, private Signal group, which included his wife, his attorney, and his brother, just weeks after Signalgate.
Caldwell, along with another ousted official, Darin Selnick, were allegedly two of 13 people in the “Defense Team Huddle” chat, according to The Times. Colin Carroll, the third person forced out of the department, was seemingly not part of the group chat.
After all three men pushed back against their firing on Saturday, Caldwell claimed that they were the subject of a baseless rumor for disrupting federal agency norms.
“Colin wasn’t afraid of challenging people when they were acting stupid and wanted to keep doing the same thing. And Darin’s the same way,” he continued. “Darin upset a lot of the people who want to keep using the military to be a giant social science experiment.”
“All of us threatened established interests,” he said.
Instead, Caldwell pointed fingers at career staff and former officials, accusing them of orchestrating the leaks.
“There are people on the joint staff that I kind of respect, but a lot of them are incredibly hostile to the secretary, to the president, and the vice president’s worldview,” he said. “It’s pretty obvious that that’s where most of the leaks are coming from.”
Hegseth, however, blamed the fired staffers for the leaks about the second Signal chat group he created, and accused them of trying to “sabotage” the president.
When asked whether the report was “leaked as a way to get back” at him during an appearance on Fox & Friends Tuesday morning, the defense secretary agreed.
“Those folks who are leaking, who have been pushed out of the building, are now attempting to leak and sabotage the president’s agenda,” he said. “We’re for the war fighters. We’re for the president. And none of this is based in reality.”
A day earlier at the White House Easter Egg Roll event, Hegseth told reporters that “disgruntled former employees” were at fault.
“They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees, and then they try to slash and burn people and ruin their reputations,” he said.
Hegseth’s job appears safe for now after Trump continues to stand by him and dismissed the report as “fake news” on Monday. “It sounds like disgruntled employees,” the president said.
The Independent has contacted the Pentagon for more information.
