A third top official was placed on administrative leave by the Pentagon on Wednesday as part of a broad leak investigation, according to a defense official and a person familiar with the situation.
Colin Carroll, Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg’s chief of staff, was suspended a day after two other political appointees were placed on leave as part of an investigation into potential sensitive information leaks.
According to the official, the leaks under investigation include military operational plans for the Panama Canal, a second carrier en route to the Red Sea, Elon Musk’s controversial visit to the Pentagon to discuss China, and a pause in intelligence collection for Ukraine.
Carroll and the Defense Department did not immediately return a request for comment.
Carroll, a Marine Corps Reserve officer, recently worked for Anduril, a defense contractor specializing in autonomous systems. According to POLITICO, he was fired by the Biden administration for creating a hostile environment while serving as chief operating officer of the former Joint Artificial Intelligence Center at the Pentagon.
Dan Caldwell, a senior adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Darin Selnick, the Defense Department’s deputy chief of staff, were led out of the Pentagon by security officers and their access to the building was suspended pending further investigation, according to the official.
Caldwell and Selnick had previously worked for Concerned Veterans for America, the non-profit that Hegseth previously led.
The incidents added fuel to Democrats’ calls for Hegseth’s resignation. Many people demanded that the Pentagon chief resign after sharing sensitive information with top officials in a Signal chat about US military strikes in Yemen.
“This is now the second major breach of classified information by the most senior political appointees in [Hegseth’s] two months of leadership at DOD,” said Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-N.Y.) in a post on X. “He should never have been appointed solely on merit, but now he poses a national security threat. “Hegseth must resign.”
