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has left his role, the latest official to leave the secretary’s inner circle since he assumed the job in January. While the aide, Justin Fulcher, said he only intended to serve in the government for six months and Chief Pentagon Spokesman“wish him well in his future endeavors,” his departure last week makes him the sixth aide to leave the department following a series of leaks and a subsequent investigation into them, which he was tied to himself.
In March, chief of staff to Hegseth Joe Kasper, another official who has since left the Pentagon, announced an investigation into leaks related to reports that then-defact head of the Department of Government Efficiencywould receive a briefing on war plans in the event of a war with China during a trip to the Pentagon, which the Pentagon later said would not happen, and military operational plans for the Panama Canal, among others.told Kasper and Hegseth’s personal attorney, Tim Parlatore, a member of the Navy Judge Advocate General Corps, that he could aid in the investigation but exaggerated his usefulness to such an inquiry. The investigation ultimately led the department to fire three aides to Hegseth and Deputy Secretary of Defense Stephen Feinberg. Defense Department senior adviser Dan Caldwell, deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick, and Colin Carroll, chief of staff to the deputy secretary of defense, were all fired despite denying involvement in the leaks. In the aftermath of their dismissals, Fulcher, Patrick Weaver, and Ricky Buria were announced as senior advisers. Prior to joining the department, Fulcher served as a member of DOGE. In a tense moment in early April, he told Hegseth’s office that he believed Yinon Weiss, Musk’s team leader at the department, had reported him to the Pentagon Force Protection Agency, an internal police force for the department, according to theIn addition to those departures, former Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot left around the same time; he and Hegseth have exchanged insults since then. Ullyot, who served during the first Trump administration, acknowledged there was “total chaos” surrounding Hegseth. Democrats widely rebuked Hegseth’s nomination to serve as the secretary of defense, accusing him of being ill-prepared to lead an institution consisting of around 3 million active-duty, reserve, and civilian personnel. Around the time of the firings of Caldwell, Selnick, and Carroll, it became public knowledge that Hegseth shared details of impending military operations against the Yemeni-based Houthis in two Signal group chats, which raised questions of whether he accidentally shared classified information on an unapproved platform. One of the two chats featured more than a dozen Cabinet officials who had debated the merits of starting the military operation. That chat, created by then-national security adviser Mike Waltz, also included anthat he shared similar details in a separate group chat that included his advisers, Parlatore, and his wife, Jennifer Rauchet, who has had an outsize presence at the department. Hegseth, who maintains he did not share classified intelligence, accused the fired aides — Caldwell, Selnick, and Carroll — of being responsible for the leak and claimed they were disgruntled and looking for revenge.“This is what the media does. They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees, and then they try to slash and burn people and ruin their reputations. Not going to work with me,” Hegseth said. There are two DoD investigations into the Signal chat saga, one conducted by the inspector general’s office. The Air Force Office of Special Investigations is leading the other one.
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