Joe Kasper, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s chief of staff will leave his role in the coming days for a new position at the agency, according to a senior administration official, amid a week of turmoil for the Pentagon.
Senior adviser Dan Caldwell, Hegseth deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick and Colin Carroll, the chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, were placed on leave this week in an ongoing leak probe. All three were terminated on Friday.
[...]
The changes will leave Hegseth without a chief of staff, deputy chief of staff, or senior adviser in his front office.
[...]
Two of the people said Carroll and Selnick plan to sue for wrongful termination.
[...]
The latest incidents add to the Pentagon’s broader upheaval in recent months, including fallout from Hegseth’s release of sensitive information in a Signal chat with other national security leaders and a controversial department visit by Elon Musk.
Politico
I can't imagine this is only happening at the Pentagon. I can easily imagine that there are some people in the intel agencies who are still harboring a grudge over Trump saying in his first days in his first term that he trusted Putin more than he trusted his own intel agents.
“There is a complete meltdown in the building, and this is really reflecting on the secretary’s leadership,” said a senior defense official. “Pete Hegseth has surrounded himself with some people who don’t have his interests at heart.”
That's not a bad thing.
This week’s terminations follow a purge of top military officers in February, including former Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. C.Q. Brown and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti.
“There probably will be more chaos,” said a third defense official. “It certainly reinforces the fear factor, awareness that no one’s job is safe.”
[...]
“The front office has some really first-rate uniformed military staff, but there’s only so much they can pick up in an organization that big,” said a former Trump administration official. “That kind of dysfunction compounds.”
UPDATE 04/21/2025:
No comments:
Post a Comment