It seems the person responsible for the scandal with a whole series of recent leaks of sensitive information related to the work of the White House and the Pentagon has been found among the United States’ top administration officials. Who is this person and why is he facing the risk of being blamed and how do such leaks work most often?
Dan Caldwell, one of the key advisers to the Head of the Pentagon Pete Hegseth was placed on administrative leave. This is related to an internal probe of potential leaks, Reuters writes referring an undisclosed official.
Caldwell was suspended for ‘an unauthorized disclosure’, the official told the agency. “The investigation remains ongoing”, the official said without providing details. Earlier, in a memo, the chief of staff at the Pentagon Joe Kasper reported that he began an investigation, which will involve the use of polygraphs to identify those responsible for the leaks.
Also, it was reported earlier that the deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick was placed on a similar administrative leave. Moreover, both officials were openly escorted out the defence ministry building with cardboard boxes and personal effects in their hands, convoyed by marines.
There is no information if Caldwell, like Selnick, took a polygraph test. He is considered to be the one who created the notorious Signal chat for top officials to discuss the U.S. operation against Yemeni Houthis, to which the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic magazine Jeffrey Goldberg was mistakenly added. In a few days, the journalist made public some of these messages, which caused a big scandal and massive allegations against the Trump administration officials of breaching secrecy and overall non-professionalism.
The White House managed to calm the clatter, but the internal investigation is gaining pace. The thing is that this has not been the first leak from the very top in the recent several months. Another high-profile case was the unauthorized publication of the temporary suspension by U.S. of sharing intelligence with Ukraine. Caldwell is said to be responsible for sharing this information too. In his profile he even has that, besides public relations, he is involved in the analysis of the issues in the field of counter-terrorism, NATO, Middle East and (sic!) of Russia-Ukraine relations.
The leaks to the press among top officials is part of the American political culture and a whole domain of Washington’s life. However, managed leaks are usually used as a form of Washington’s communication with the external world. As for these cases, here they speak exactly of unauthorised leaks, which were accidental or resulted from a malfeasance or a plot aimed to discredit the Trump administration.
The current key claim to Trump and his henchmen is the lack of solid governance experience and non-professionalism. Of course, such ‘an incidental’ leak supporting these allegations has caused suspicions in malice.
Technically, it was Trump’s advisor Mike Waltz who created the chat. Later in an interview he made excuses that he had the Atlantic editor-in-chief saved in his phone under a different name accidentally. And he added this number to the chat. This excuse looked unconvincing and childish.
It is hard to imagine that the official of this level presses buttons on his private phone to set up a messenger chat to discuss the plans to conduct a military operation using winged rocket missiles, potential nuclear weapon vehicles, with other similar major decision makers. This is what aides usually do.
Also, Caldwell is being probed under several cases of leaks, which makes his potential guilt much worse. In some public accounts close to American governance, they started calling him ‘a mole’, which greatly distorts the view of what is going on. Assuming Caldwell is ‘a mole’ in the classic meaning of the term, i.e. someone’s agent infiltrated to the Pentagon’s top circles, then this is a counter-intelligence issue. But the FBI does not handle leaks, so far only an internal administrative probe is in progress.
Meaning that someone wrongly understood the term ‘mole’. It is likely that in the heat of the moment Caldwell can be accused of working on the Democratic Party or, directly, on the media. However, his background suggests something completely different.
Dan Caldwell is a friend of Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth. Not a close one, but they have been working together for a long time. By his first profession, Caldwell is a marine officer, he served as a member of the security force at the presidential retreat at Camp David, he was several times deployed to Iraq, which again connects him with Hegseth. After finishing his active service, Caldwell worked in the veteran commission where he met the future defence secretary. And through all this time, he was a consistent supporter of the Republicans, he even worked as an aide to a Republican congressman.
Pete Hegseth called him ‘the best communicator’, which the Pentagons had ever had. But know ‘the best communicator’ is turning into a scapegoat in front of our eyes. Well, indeed, of course, Waltz will not be responsible for the leak, although he himself confessed he had added the journalist’s number to the chat with his own hands.
However, there is one important circumstance. Washington really has and has always had the leak issue. And this not because of the freedom of speech and sharing information, but due to the lack of a standard security hygiene. The behind-the-curtain environment in Washington, with its semi-closed clubs for politicians, lobbyists and journalists is not favourable for keeping secrecy. This has become a form of political culture and earlier was considered a democratic acquisition. This is the openness we have, nothing can be hidden.
But times change, problems grow and today unauthorised leaks are treated as a security breach. What is meant here is not threats only for Donald Trumps and his entourage with their eternal struggle against Democrats and ‘the deep state’ and ‘Washington swamp’ bureaucracy. This is a problem of U.S. national security in general.
This is influenced by the old Trump’s loathing of top U.S. media, which he considers hostile, as most of them are controlled by the Democrats or left liberals. In the conservative environment, there is no culture to manipulate public opinion through leaks in the media, this is an ‘achievement’ and dubious practice of liberals prone to manipulate masses. And Defence Secretary Hegseth is a simple guy, he takes the leak, an incidental or a deliberate one, involving, on top of that, his friend and supporter, not just as a failure, but almost as a betrayal. Here is from where terms like ‘a mole’ and the humiliating procedure of escorting from the Pentagon building come from.
It is likely that the internal probe currently being held with secrecy, which is unexpected for Washington, might lead to the strengthening of rules on interaction with press and handling information in general. Which, in turn, Trump’s opponents will take it as ‘an attack on democracy’.
But the issue is not about drafting new regulations on information handling, but about Washington’s atmosphere: addressing it with regulations will hardly work. But it can be surely said that Dan Caldwell’s case is not the last one. Things are too messy there.