Three close allies of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — each with years of experience and long working relationships with Hegseth himself — were abruptly and unceremoniously fired. Pentagon officials accused them of leaking to the press, but the story doesn’t track.
The deep state theory doesn’t hold. The turf war theory feels incomplete. And the leak theory has holes you could drive a troop carrier through.
Senior adviser Dan Caldwell, Deputy Chief of Staff Darin Selnick, and Colin Carroll, chief of staff to the deputy secretary, all lost their jobs and were escorted out of the building within days of each other. All three held high-level positions. All three stood firmly in Hegseth’s corner.
Then, on Tuesday morning, Hegseth returned to familiar ground — his old seat at Fox News — to brand them as leakers. He told viewers his loyalty lies not with former aides but with the mission: securing the nation and carrying out the president’s agenda.
That explanation raised more questions than it answered.
I don’t know much about Carroll’s personal circle, but plenty of credible people vouch for Caldwell and Selnick. Caldwell, in particular, has a reputation for integrity. Just about everyone I’ve spoken with insists he’s no leaker.
Yes, Caldwell’s name surfaced during an internal leak investigation at Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s conservative policy initiative. Investigators found that he was one of only a few people who had access to information that later ended up in the press. But no evidence ever proved he leaked anything.
Here’s the funny part: No one ever confiscated Caldwell’s personal phone. Staffers aren’t allowed to bring personal devices into secure areas — but still, if this were a serious investigation, one reportedly headed for possible referral to the Justice Department, you’d expect them to take that basic step. The fact that they didn’t only fuels suspicion that something else is going on.
And that “something else” probably isn’t what many in MAGA world initially assumed. The first theory on the right was that this was a deep-state purge targeting Hegseth’s inner circle — especially those urging caution on Iran.
Yes, Caldwell has taken a dovish stance. But as several Pentagon veterans told Beltway Brief, that’s not how the national security establishment usually operates when it wants to push someone out. Its members act methodically, carefully, and with bureaucratic precision.
This, by contrast, was fast. And sloppy. Which makes it all the more suspicious.
This mess increasingly looks like an internal power play. If Hegseth’s chief of staff, Joe Kasper, launched a turf war against longtime allies, as some sources suggest, then it’s odd to see Hegseth so animated about it — publicly repeating and defending the accusations in interviews. His remarks on Fox News make it clear he’s fully bought in to the leak narrative.
That’s a turn. Back when Hegseth ran the Koch-backed Concerned Veterans for America, his main problem wasn’t internal leaks — it was his hawkish foreign policy clashing with the network’s more restrained posture. It’s entirely possible that the current dust-up stems from Hegseth himself. Still, he hired these people.
So the deep state theory doesn’t hold. The turf war theory feels incomplete. And the leak theory has holes you could drive a troop carrier through.
What’s left? An administration trying to manage the largest bureaucracy in the world with limited executive experience — and the consequences are starting to show. People are angry. And unless someone inside the Pentagon offers real answers, that anger won’t fade any time soon.
Tucker Carlson: The Dan Caldwell interview
Fox & Friends:The Pete Hegseth interview
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