April 16 (UPI) — A second adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been suspended as the Defense Department probes leaks of information at the Pentagon.
Defense Department’s deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick, was placed on administrative leave, Politico reported.
A U.S. Defense official told The Hill the leave is “pending an investigation.”
The alleged leaks under investigation are reportedly related to military operations plans for the Panama Canal, the movement of a second aircraft carrier to the Red Sea, Elon Musk’s visit to the department and the stoppage of intelligence sharing with Ukraine.
Selnick, a retired Air Force officer, has also served as a part of several veterans’ affairs groups, and was a senior adviser to the Concerned Veterans for America, a nonprofit formerly led by Hegseth.
Selnick’s suspension follows the physical removal of Hegseth senior adviser Dan Caldwell, who was escorted out of the Pentagon Tuesday and also placed on administrative leave.
Caldwell was the point of contact in a Signal group chat in which government officials discussed military strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen in March. The group was revealed by the top editor of The Atlantic, who was unexpectedly added to the thread.
Hegseth’s chief of staff Joe Kasper announced in March that the probe was underway in regard to “unauthorized disclosures of national security information involving sensitive communications with principals within the Office of the Secretary of Defense.”
