Two senior Donald Trump defense officials were just booted out of the Pentagon and told not to come back

Two Trumpite Department of Defense officials, Dan Caldwell and Darin Selnick, have just been escorted out of the Pentagon like common criminals, and their building passes snatched from their hands. The reason? An ongoing investigation into “unauthorized leaks”.

Caldwell, a Marine Corps vet working as a senior advisor to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, was involved in the “Signal-gate” debacle, in which The Atlantic was invited to a top secret defense meeting by mistake. Hegseth was practically waving Caldwell’s name around as the go-to guy for the National Security Council while they were plotting strikes against the Houthis in Yemen.

BREAKING 🚨 Darin Selnick Pete Hegseths Deputy Chief of Staff was just removed. It’s happening 🔥

GOOD RIDDANCE. TIME TO PROSECUTE pic.twitter.com/4oqUFmFbwV

— MAGA Voice (@MAGAVoice) April 16, 2025

Meanwhile, Selnick has been strutting around as the Pentagon’s deputy chief of staff and moonlighting as the under secretary for personnel and readiness. This guy’s resume has “Trump loyalist” written all over it, with stints in the White House and the Department of Veterans Affairs during Trump’s first circus. Both he and Caldwell also worked at Concerned Veterans for America, which – surprise, surprise – Hegseth used to run. Smells like a clique, huh?

Now the two men are accused of leaking America’s secrets like sieves. On Mar. 21, Hegseth’s chief of staff Joe Kaspar began an investigation into “recent unauthorised disclosures of national security information involving sensitive communications”, specifically relating to military plans for the Panama Canal, a second carrier cruising to the Red Sea, Elon Musk’s shady Pentagon visit, and pausing intelligence to Ukraine.

The situation is so serious – and Caldwell and Selnick considered so untrustworthy – that they may be forced to (or already have been) subject to a lie detector test. Reuters reports that “the investigation remains ongoing”.

NEW: Dan Caldwell, top advisor to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, escorted out of the Pentagon after being identified in leaks probe – REU pic.twitter.com/yM22n6MS0E

— BNO News (@BNONews) April 15, 2025

However, let’s face it, you don’t kick the Pentagon’s deputy chief of staff out of the Pentagon and confiscate his security pass unless you’ve got an extremely compelling reason to do so. Perhaps the best case scenario for the two men is that they’re merely incompetent and have inadvertently been responsible for leaking classified information. Alternatively, if they’ve been wilfully supplying America’s secrets to the country’s enemies, this could shape into a seriously big scandal.

In an amusing twist, Trump loyalists are actually celebrating the decision while painting the men as, effectively, deep state Democrat moles, despite their long associations with the Trump administration. They do love to eat their own, though.

For now, all we can do is watch, wait, and hope that the truth emerges soon. Either way, evidence is mounting that Trump appointees aren’t necessarily the most competent people to have in charge of national security. And, let’s face it, Hegseth’s position isn’t looking particularly sturdy right now.