Days of highly publicized departures at the Pentagon appear to have come from weeks – if not months – of simmering tensions and factional infighting, Fox News Digital can reveal.
According to multiple defense officials, the three employees put on leave this week were never told what they were accused of leaking, were not read their rights and were given no guidance on who they could or couldn’t speak to. They were also not asked to turn over their cellphones as part of the leak probe.
At least one of the former employees is consulting with legal counsel, but none have been fired and all are awaiting the outcome of the investigation.
Top aides to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth were placed on leave and escorted out of the building this week as the Pentagon probes unauthorized leaks: senior adviser Dan Caldwell, deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick and Colin Carroll, chief of staff to Deputy Secretary of Defense Stephen Feinberg.
Another press aide, John Ullyot, parted ways with the Pentagon because he did not want to be second-in-command of the communications shop.
Officials denied that the three men were placed on leave because of their foreign policy views and said they saw no connection to their positions on Iran and Israel – even as reports surfaced that President Donald Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the Pentagon would not intervene if Israel attacked Iran.
Selnick was focused on operations, administration and personnel matters; Carroll was focused largely on acquisitions; and Caldwell advised mostly on the Europe portfolio.
But the trio were united, according to one defense official with knowledge of the situation, in the fact that Hegseth’s chief of staff, Joe Kasper, had a ‘deep vendetta’ against them. Kasper issued a memo in late March directing the Pentagon to investigate unauthorized disclosures to reporters and to go so far as using lie detector tests if necessary.
The three had raised concerns to Hegseth about Kasper’s leadership, and Kasper believed they were trying to get him fired, according to the official.
Those tensions had boiled into ‘shouting matches in the front office,’ the official said.
Another Pentagon official disputed those claims and insisted that any accusation the firings had to do with anything other than the unauthorized leak investigation was ‘false.’
‘This is not about interpersonal conflict,’ that official said. ‘There is evidence of leaking. This is about unauthorized disclosures, up to and including classified information.’
Legal experts say the employees don’t need to be notified of what they’re accused of doing until the investigation is concluded.
‘Being placed on paid leave is not considered a disciplinary decision. It’s considered a preliminary step to conduct an investigation, so if they think they’re being railroaded or hosed, they’ll have some due process opportunity to respond when there’s a formal decision,’ said Sean Timmons, a legal expert in military and employment law.
‘They’ve been humiliated in the media to some extent. However, this happens every day in the federal government. Generally speaking, what’s happened so far is not necessarily considered discipline. It’s just considered a security protocol step to suspend their authorization, suspend their access to their emails, and a full, thorough independent investigation can be conducted.’
The three aides are civilian political appointees, meaning they could be fired at-will regardless of the investigation. But if they are found to have engaged in unauthorized leaking, they could have their security clearances yanked away.
‘There are very few protections when it comes to political appointees versus career civilian staff,’ said Libby Jamison, an attorney who specializes in military law. ‘For appointees, there is very broad discretion to be placed on administrative leave or reassigned.’
If employees are accused of leaking, a report is sent to the Defense Information System for Security, and then there is an independent review of their eligibility for access to sensitive information.
‘They’ll get a chance, potentially, to try to keep their clearance and show that they didn’t violate any security clearance protocols when it comes to handling sensitive information,’ said Timmons. ‘If it is found they were leaking information in violation of the rules, and then there’s a guideline violation for personal misconduct and for breaching of sensitive information. So they could be possibly criminally prosecuted and certainly terminated from their employment and have their clearance stripped and revoked.’
Or, if the independent officer does not find sufficient evidence to tie them to the leaks, they could return to their positions and maintain clearances.
Ullyot, meanwhile, said that he had made clear to Hegseth from the beginning that he was ‘not interested in being number two to anyone in public affairs.’
Ullyot ran the public affairs office on an acting basis at the start of the administration, leading a memo that yanked back workspaces for legacy media outlets and reassigned them to conservative networks. Ullyot also took a jab at former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, saying his ‘corpulence’ set a bad example for Pentagon fitness standards.
But as his temporary chief role came to a close and Sean Parnell took the Pentagon chief spokesperson job, Ullyot said he and Hegseth ‘could not come to an agreement on another good fit for me at DOD. So I informed him today that I will be leaving at the end of this week.’
Ullyot said he remains one of Hegseth’s ‘strongest supporters.’
The office of the secretary of defense and the three aides who were placed on leave this week either declined to comment or could not be reached for this story.