Fear and chaos at the Pentagon

Pentagon officials are living “in fear” of being forced to take polygraph tests to prove they are not leaking sensitive information to the media. An email warning of the potential use of lie-detector testing has created an atmosphere of intimidation, according to one US defence source. The source said the Pentagon was currently a “Pandora’s box” of uncertainty, following the sacking of three top officials and the departure of two more high-ranking civilians in the last week, leaving Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, without key advisers. “The extraordinary thing is that lie detector tests are being threatened, not to uncover potential anti-President Trump civil servants but to catch political appointees suspected of leaking classified or sensitive information,” the source said. There are also concerns that the Pentagon will follow the example of the Department of Homeland Security where some officials have been ordered to hand over their phones to check on their political loyalty and their social media activity. “Pentagon officials are living each day in fear of being sacked. This is all causing a huge distraction and I would be shocked if Hegseth is still defence secretary for much longer,” the source said. Hegseth himself is still being investigated by the Pentagon’s inspector general for his involvement in the Signal group chat last month between top Trump national security officials about the upcoming air strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen. One of those in the text-messaging group was Geoffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the Atlantic magazine, who had been inadvertently invited to participate. Now he is facing further investigation after The New York Times revealed Hegseth had also discussed the airstrikes on the Houthis with a second Signal chat group which included his wife, Jennifer, a former Fox News producer, his brother Phil and Tim Parlatore, his personal lawyer, both of whom work in some capacity in the Pentagon. Sean Parnell, Pentagon spokesman, denied in a reply on social media that any classified information had been discussed in either of the Signal chats. Underlining the reported chaos at the Pentagon, one of the officials ousted last week has spoken out in public about the damage being created by the recent sackings. John Ullyot, appointed top spokesman by Hegseth, was asked to resign following an outcry over the removal from the Pentagon’s website of the military service record for Jackie Robinson, a black baseball legend and civil rights hero. It was removed as part of the Trump administration’s order to stop promoting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). The website entry on Jackie Robinson was restored. Following Ullyot’s ousting, three top Hegseth officials were accused of leaking classified information to the media and were summarily sacked: Dan Caldwell, a senior adviser to the defence secretary, Darin Selnick, deputy chief of staff, and Colin Carroll, chief of staff to Stephen Feinberg, the deputy defence secretary. Then Joe Kasper, Hegseth’s chief of staff, was also removed, creating five vacancies in “front office” roles in just a week. “The [Pentagon] building is in disarray under Hegseth’s leadership,” Ullyot wrote in an opinion piece in the Politico magazine. “The dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president, who deserves better from his senior leadership,” he wrote. Ullyot wrote that the Pentagon was in “total chaos” and he also doubted whether Hegseth would survive as defence secretary. He accused Hegseth’s office of “falsehoods” about the three officials who were sacked for leaking information including the decision to send a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East. On Saturday the three sacked officials penned a post on X (formerly Twitter) in which they claimed they had been slandered. “Hegseth is now presiding over a strange and baffling purge,” Ullyot wrote. “More firings may be coming, according to rumours in the building.” Ullyot was in charge of communications at the National Security Council during Trump’s first term as president.