On May 27, The Guardian uncovered a rift between the White House and Pentagon after the former “lost confidence in a leak investigation.”
White House advisers were reportedly shocked when Tim Parlatore, Hegseth’s personal lawyer who was tasked with overseeing an investigation into a series of leaks at the Pentagon, told them that a warrantless wiretap was used to find classified documents on the phone of the secretary’s then–senior adviser Dan Caldwell.
The New Republic
Caldwell, Colin Carroll, the former chief of staff to the deputy defense secretary, and former deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick, were all fired at the request of Joe Kasper, the former chief of staff, as part of a purge against Kasper’s rivals in the Pentagon. Kasper had a close relationship with Parlatore. Kasper is now a special government employee.
Despite Parlatore’s claim that this supposed wiretap of Caldwell uncovered photographs of plans to invade the Panama Canal, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations had focused its initial investigation into mid-level aides, and had not focused on Caldwell, Carroll, and Selnick until the weekend of their firing. Caldwell has also maintained his innocence.
When the White House questioned Parlatore about how he’d determined that Caldwell had the leaked document on his phone, he suggested that a wiretap had taken place. He later denied this, and said all information he’d received had been passed to him from officials at the Pentagon.
The New Republic
Parlatore’s credibility has been diminished by this extreme workplace rivalry. The investigation into the leaks was transferred from him to deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg. On a podcast, Carroll spilled the beans about his former employer, claiming that over half of Hegseth’s workday is spent “on a leak investigation.” Despite Hegseth’s stated intention of bringing a focus on lethality back to the Pentagon, he has found himself engrossed in workplace politics.
