(José Niño, Headline USA) With the world on the brink of large-scale war on multiple fronts, the Trump administration’s foreign policy team is reportedly fraying at the seams with backstabbing and allegations of leaks and illegal NSA wiretapping.
According to multiple reports, White House advisers were initially told that Dan Caldwell, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth’s senior adviser, along with Darin Selnick and Colin Carroll, had been identified as leakers of state secrets. Tim Parlatore, who was overseeing the leak probe, initially told people he discovered the leakers through an unauthorized National Security Agency (NSA) wiretap, according to a report by The Guardian.
Dan Caldwell, a top advisor to Defense Chief Pete Hegseth, was escorted out of the Pentagon after being named in a Department of Defense leaks investigation.
Caldwell didn’t toe the usual line on foreign policy. He openly challenged the Washington consensus on Israel, saying the… pic.twitter.com/O2ZoVSNmXd
— Shadow of Ezra (@ShadowofEzra) April 15, 2025
However, the NSA wiretap claim was apparently false. The situation became even more confusing when Parlatore denied ever telling anyone about an illegal NSA wiretap, insisting that any such information had come from others at the Pentagon.
The aides who were fired all denied wrongdoing, with Caldwell publicly claiming on Tucker Carlson’s podcast that the investigation was “weaponized” against them as part of internal Pentagon politics. There were also rumors that the Air Force Office of Special Investigations had initially focused on mid-level staffers, only shifting attention to the three senior aides after their terminations.
The fallout from these developments has been severe. Trust between the Pentagon and the White House has eroded, with Trump advisers privately admitting they “no longer have any idea about who or what to believe.”
One adviser even told Hegseth he suspected the investigation was used to oust aides involved in infighting with former chief of staff Joe Kasper, rather than to address actual leaks. The ongoing uncertainty has left Hegseth’s office in disarray: he currently has no chief or deputy chief of staff and is relying on a group of senior advisers to run the department.
Amid the chaos, the White House has blocked Hegseth from permanently promoting his former junior military aide, Ricky Buria, to chief of staff due to Buria’s limited experience and involvement in the internal drama.
The Pentagon declined to comment on the specifics of the investigation, while a White House spokesperson maintained that “President Trump is confident in the secretary’s ability to ensure top leadership at the Department of Defense shares their focus on restoring a military that is focused on readiness, lethality, and excellence.”
The wiretap controversy is only the latest in a series of scandals and rumors that have plagued Hegseth’s tenure, including the so-called “Signalgate” incident.
With no resolution in sight, the wiretap scandal continues to cast a shadow over Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon.
José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino
